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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Scandals of An Innocent by Nicola Cornick, August 4, 2009
This review is from: The Scandals of An Innocent (The Brides of Fortune) (Mass Market Paperback)
"The Scandals of An Innocent" is book two of Nicola Cornick's early regency period trilogy. This series is set in Fortune's Folly, a fictional town in Yorkshire where the greedy 'Lord' has reinstated a Middle Ages 'Dames Tax' which will allow him to take up to half the fortune of every unwed woman of marriagable age after one year. Needless to say, every fortune hunter in the country has made his way to Fortune's Folly in an effort to wed an heiress; and the women of Fortune's Folly are literally under seige!
Alice is the young maid-turned-heiress who inherited a fortune from her last employer. While the money certainly made the lives of her, her mother, and her brother much easier, it has also brought about their horrible situation of 'not one nor the other'. They aren't ton, but they're not servants either. Alice HAS made some good friends, and she considered herself heartsore but lucky when the fortune hunter she cared for dumped her to woo a richer heiress. Unfortunately for her, now HE's back and still in need of her fortune...and he's got her over a barrel this time.
Miles has inherited not one, but two bankrupt estates. It's certainly not fair that HE wasn't the one to bankrupt them, but now he's saddled with trying to keep his family out of the poorhouse. A family estrangement and the horrors of war have removed every trace of caring from his being...at least that's what HE thinks. His situation is becoming desperate when he finally gets the break he needs--so he promptly blackmails Alice into an engagement.
I think most women like to read about 'bad boys'. We love our tormented heroes, our hard Alphas, and our regency rakes. BUT, we DO want to see them reforming. My beef with this story is that he really doesn't reform until the last few chapters of a 360-page read! For the vast majority of the book, he was a total A$$--constantly trampling Alice's feelings, not protecting her from the snobby locals, and being a jerk to just about everybody! How in the heck do I try and like a guy like that? Over and over again, he stressed to Alice that: 1-he was marrying her for her money; and 2-he was also happy that he would get to 'bed' her. What a guy, eh?
On the other hand, I did like Alice. She tried her best to deal with the jerk in a reasonable manner, even under duress. So having confessed that I hated the plot (well the nature of the hero and whole blackmail thing anyway), I CAN say that Nicola Cornick writes with lovely pacing and there's always a reason for the ongoing action in her stories. There's a bit of mystery (WHY is someone trying to kill Alice?) with small clues thrown here and there. I didn't figure out the 'bad guys' til the author did the unveiling at the very end. The supporting cast was a mostly likeable mishmash of family and friends that were first introduced in book one, "The Confessions of a Duchess". This story can stand alone with no problems, and as long as you can tolerate the jerk of a hero, you'll probably enjoy "The Scandals of An Innocent" much more than I did!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I found this very likable....... though I seem to be in the minority......., September 16, 2009
This review is from: The Scandals of An Innocent (The Brides of Fortune) (Mass Market Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
My first Nicola Cornick book and I ended up really enjoying it. This is book 2 of the Brides of Fortune series and while this did manage to stand on it's own two feet there were times when I didn't know what the heck was going on.
I liked this book because of Miles and Alice. I liked them. They were two characters who were trapped by their circumstances and I felt so bad for them. For Alice, and yes, even Miles. At first Miles comes across as a, how shall I put this, as a humongous bast**d. Call him every foul Regency era name in the book and it fits. He was an unrepentant bad boy and he snookered me completely. He was outrageous in his arrogance and ruthlessness and I fell for him like a rock. Then the book cuts to Alice and her anger and frustration at being once again at the mercy of an aristocrat killed my growing lust and I was ready to cut off his vital parts and lay them at Alice's feet for her approval. I found her likable and charming and never whiney. Which gets a big thumbs up from me. And Miles, while ruthless in his drive to get his hands on Alice's money and on her body, (in that order) should have disgusted me, or at the very least irritated me, but instead I felt so bad for him. He was a guy who had the deck stacked against him and I kept reading through this rather long winded book just so I could see him happy.
Having never read Nicola Cornick before I was surprised by the sizzle this book packed. Quite a naughty little Regency book this was. Nothing too overtly sexy but there was still a lot of heaving bosoms going on. And there's a naughty little secret that Alice is carrying around on her, uh, person that I found hysterical. OH, that was priceless. Though after I stopped laughing I had to cry out, "shenanigans!" If you really don't want one, nothing less than being shackled to a table will force you to sit still for it. Also, a brilliant move by the author had me laughing, after she had turned my own dirty mind against me.
All in all, I really liked it. It was amusing, had good pacing, I liked the the H/H and the zany family members. On the negative side it was a bit long winded, the author kept reiterating certain points and feelings, and since I did not read the first book in this series, the mystery lacked depth for me. Plus it was implausible. A servant girl even attempting to enter the aristocracy and reaching as high as a marquis? Please. But this was still enjoyable and I'm glad I read it and I hope to read the other books in this series again soon.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mildly entertaining, but long-winded, Regency romance, September 6, 2009
This review is from: The Scandals of An Innocent (The Brides of Fortune) (Mass Market Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
In Book Two of her "The Brides of Fortune" series, author Nicola Cornick tells the tale of Alice Lister, a former maidservant, who has unexpectedly inherited eighty thousand pounds and some properties from her employer. The old lady had lost her only daughter, and bequeathed her entire estate to the lovely, virginal Alice. Now Alice lives in supreme comfort in the small town of Fortune's Folly, with her mother, also a former servant, and two close girl friends. The hook of the series is that an archaic tax being imposed on the unmarried women of the Yorkshire township by its "squire" is causing them to all to rush to the altar within a year or lose half their doweries. So penniless aristocrats are flocking to the town to take advantage of the women's predicament. The hook of this particular novel is that Alice is being courted by Miles Vickery, a devilishly handsome nobleman, with whom Alice has an unfortunate history. He had courted her the year before, then dumped her for a richer prospect, only to have that lady marry elsewhere. Now he is back, handily in possession of some damning scandalous information on Alice, and blackmailing her into accepting his renewed courtship.
This book reminds me, in style but not in content, of some of the more popular romances of the late eighties and early nineties, in that it is very long, with very small print. Unfortunately most of the length of the novel is padding. The author feels the need to keep reminding her readers what she has already said in preceding chapters, belaboring plot points and recapping character angst, much in the manner that reality shows do when returning from a commercial break. I found myself skimming over the third and fourth three-page explanations of Alice's frustration with the fact that Miles does not love her and is only pursuing her for her money. I get it! She loves him, but thinks he can never love her. Point taken. Move on, please.
I also had some problems with the some of the author's plot points. Even with the newly-acquired wealth, I don't think Alice or her mother would ever find a place among the nobility, even in Yorkshire. Alice's upper-crust manners and queenly bearing are pretty unbelievable, considering that in the station of life to which she was born, she probably would not have been taught to read, much less had the chance to acquire any polish or knowledge of dancing, table etiquette or social interaction. And when I got to the part where Alice was discovered to have a tattoo -- well that's just too anachronistic for words.
This is a formulaic, diversion-for-a-rainy-Sunday or long plane ride kind of romance. It's not in the class of Kleypas or Hoyt, but it's not simply dreadful. Romance fans will recognize overuse of many of the more tired catch-phrases such as "speaking glance," but will probably forgive them because the love scenes are sexy and nicely set-up.
Overall, just okay.
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