Thursday Thoughts - 4 - Book Review - When a Stranger Loves Me by Julianne MacLean

This is my third book review for my cousin's latest release. As I'm nearing my second blogiversary on Feb. 5th, this means she's had three books come out in that time.

I know. She is amazing.


1 - You can check out all three reviews in My Book Reviews archive.

2 - When a Stranger Loves Me is the third book in Julianne's Pembroke Palace series. The hero is part of an English ducal family driven to act by the deranged requirements of the patriarch. The current duke is going mad, and believes a flood will wipe out their ancestral home - unless all four of his sons marry before Christmas. If they fail to find wives in that time, the entire fortune will go to the Horticultural Society.

3 - Part of Avon's Historical Romance category, When a Stranger Loves Me gives us a heroine who tried to follow her own passions as a young woman, was hauled away from her elopement by her prominent father and promptly became the outrageous scandal of London. The hero survives a shipwreck in the English Channel, washing ashore upon the Jersey Island where the heroine has lived in exile.

4 - We meet Lady Chelsea Campion, a woman whose exile from society turned into the kind of freedom that allowed her to blossom. Chelsea lives in the summer home of her family's estate year round, along with her mother, brother and sister-in-law. Chelsea is deeply attached to her island home. She knows how to read the skies, she knows every ridge and hollow of the island, and spends her days crafting stories.

5 - Luckily for the hero, Chelsea takes a walk along the shore after a wild storm, ending up in the sea caves. There she finds an unconscious naked man thrown onto the jagged rocks. When he finally awakes, it is only to discover he can remember nothing of how he got there. Not the circumstances of his discovery, not any circumstances - he has no memory of anything that happened before he was discovered in the cave. Including his own identity.

6 - Chelsea dubs him Jack so he can have a name, at least. Jack's abilities remain intact - his aristocratic manners, his knack of tying a cravat and especially his exceptional talent for drawing. Among other pastimes, Chelsea and Jack spend many fulfilling hours while she writes and Jack sketches.

7 - But at night, Chelsea joins him in his room, giving in to the frightening passion she feels for this complete stranger. For he may not know who he is, but Jack can see inside of Chelsea in a way no one else has ever done - not even the lover she'd tried to marry before her family put a stop to it.

8 - Jack tells Chelsea she is his whole world now - the only person who knows him in a world he can't recall. But the gnawing sensation of letting someone down, of something urgent that needs him to act intrudes upon his Jersey Island idyll. And why can't he remember being stabbed? When Chelsea found him in the cave, he was bleeding from a puncture wound. Was it simply from the shipwreck? Or did someone want him dead?

9 - A thread of rebellion against the weight of duty runs strongly throughout this book. Charged with being the reason for her family's exile, Chelsea feels compelled to bear the burden of her loved ones' future, with her father passed on and a marriage proposal made by a man willing to overlook her ruination. Is it so wrong to allow herself a few days of pleasure with a stranger before shackling herself to Lord Carruthers?

As for Jack - why does his heart sink when he's finally located by his family? Why must he leave Chelsea behind and face the crushing expectations of 'loved ones' for whom he has no feelings?

10 - Julianne really knows how to end each chapter with a hook. Like this, for example:

"Chelsea sat for a long time, listening to the steady ticking of the clock on the mantel and the constant murmur of the sea. The sun had disappeared below the horizon, and outside the window, high in the sky, the stars appeared, one by one.

Rising to her feet, she strolled to the bedside, put a hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn, then leaned over the man. He would no doubt be very weak when he opened his eyes, perhaps too weak to even speak.

Feeling a sudden wave of compassion for his suffering, she laid her open hand upon his forearm. Gently, with the tip of her finger, she traced a path around all the little scrapes and cuts, as if she were following a maze. He was warm to her touch, but so very still and lifeless.

Her eyes traveled down the length of his body. She could see the outline of his firm torso and long legs, and remembered again his naked form in the cave. Her belly swirled with fascination and arousal, which shamed her for a moment, until she remembered that she was a flesh and blood woman - a woman who had once known passion and desire for a brief time before this seven-year exile. There was a time she'd wanted nothing more than to know a man's body, and to be made love to by someone she adored.

Suddenly, without warning, the man's arm snapped up. He grabbed her wrist.

Panic flared in her stomach. She gasped, but before she could even comprehend the pain in her arm, he was scrambling out of the bed like a wild animal, coming at her with raging fury in his eyes.

She screamed as he threw her to the floor. Her head hit the rug and she squeezed her eyes shut. All the air sailed out of her lungs.

The man pinned her down, tossed a leg over her hips and straddled her. When she opened her eyes, he was sitting on top of her, holding a brass candlestick over his head. It gleamed in the firelight, just like the ferocity in his wild blue eyes.

'Aaah!' he yelled as he drew the weapon back and swung."

11 - As always, Julianne excels at the dialogue between her hero and heroine. Julianne never fails to take a scene I think is going in one direction - and then flips it on its ear. She's the master of getting to the deeper emotions between lovers. Their raw feelings create true conflict, twisting the reader's heart into the same knots as the lovers'.

12 - Julianne moves to St. Martin's Press for her next release. Here's her announcement on her website:

"Julianne just accepted a three book deal to write for St. Martins Press. The contract is for a historical romance trilogy set in the Scottish Highlands. Release dates to be announced soon!"

She's wearing her fingers out at the keyboard on the first of the trilogy. My writers' chapter already got a sneak peek at the opening scene. Ladies, this is a hero to die for.

13 - I leave you with an excerpt from When a Stranger Loves Me. Enjoy!

" 'So you've forgiven me, then?' Jack asked as he refastened his trousers.

They had made love standing up against the door of his bedchamber. She had not seemed to mind the base carnality of it, nor suggested they move to a quieter spot on the bed. Perhaps she knew there was no one nearby to hear, for clearly she'd come here with one thing on her mind, and they got down to business without any of the usual genteel preliminaries.

He nuzzled her cheek and stepped back. Chelsea pushed away from the door.

'We already agreed that there is nothing to forgive,' she said. 'You were right when we spoke outside earlier today. You have not kept anything from me. I knew what I was getting myself into when I came to you the other night, and I have indeed been more than satisfied.'

He watched her for a strange moment, as she walked seductively to the window.

'But there is something different about you,' he said, narrowing his eyes. 'You're closed off. You're not acting like yourself.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'Is it? I think you are still angry about what happened in bed this morning.' He hesitated. 'Or perhaps... hurt.'

'I am neither,' she quickly asserted as she pulled the curtain aside with one finger and looked out. 'I am simply trying to be realistic.'

'How so?'

She faced him. He had the distinct impression she was giving a great deal of consideration to her answer, almost as if she were plotting one of her stories, deciding upon the most effective piece of dialogue for her protagonist.

'I don't want to become too attached to you,' she said at last.

He studied her eyes and saw a hint of vulnerability there, mixed possibly with some melancholy.

But it was an honest answer - at least he believed it to be so - and it gave him some reassurance that he had not lost her completely. She was still being open with him.

He approached her. 'And is there a danger of you becoming too attached?'

'There is a danger of anything. You are very pleasant to be around. Most of the time,' she added playfully.

'When I am not calling you by other women's names, I suppose.'

'Precisely.'

'I'll try not to do it again.'

'I would appreciate that.'

For a moment more they stood without talking, merely looking at each other while the waves rolled up onto the shoreline outside the window. Here in the room, the clock ticked steadily on the mantel.

Jack noticed the heavy beat of his heart. He felt restless, filled with a yearning that seemed to have no cure - for he could not close the space between them. How could he, when he did not know who he was, or if he was even free to care for her the way he wanted to?

Then, for some unknown reason, he remembered the urgency he'd felt the night before, and felt again that he was letting someone down. The feeling dropped into his stomach like a stone. Someone needed him. Of that, he was certain. There was a duty he was expected to fulfill.

God, was there a wife?

He looked down at the floor.

'So until we know more about you,' Chelsea said, her voice more forceful now, almost as if she had read his thoughts, 'I will simply keep my heart out of it, as you should do as well.'

'That's probably wise,' he heard himself saying, without looking up, because he was not in a position to offer his heart, or any kind of promise that involved the future. As things stood, he could offer Chelsea nothing, and she knew it."

- Julianne MacLean, 2009


Join me next week when I review Wanderlust by Shelley Munro.

Thursday Thirteen - 65 - 13 Reasons to Read The Mistress Diaries by Julianne MacLean

I'm very excited to bring you this book review, as the author is none other than my fabulous cousin, Julianne MacLean.

I met Julianne when I was six, when my family moved from Michigan and rejoined the Nova Scotia branch of the clan. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. Julianne and her brother, and myself and my sister, grew up like four siblings, always over at their house or our house. There's a me that only Julianne knows, and she's a bright spot in my world when I'm often wiping away the tears of loved ones, dusting them off and setting them back on their feet again.

Julianne is the person I can relax and laugh with, admire the same sort of writing muses *wink*, and plunge into fascinating creative discussions with. So I'm thrilled to be able to share her 12th book release with all of you. The Mistress Diaries hits store shelves on July 29th.

1 - The Mistress Diaries is a Harper Collins Avon Books release. Second in the Pembroke Palace series, this story follows the second Sinclair brother forced to choose a bride by a father slowly going mad.

2 - Part of Avon's Romance category, Julianne's story is a Victorian historical focusing on the swirling emotions that hide beneath the polished exterior of the nobility. The love scenes are steamy and really take the reader inside the feelings of the hero and heroine.

3 - Here is the book trailer for The Mistress Diaries, made by Julianne's husband, man of many talents. The trailer is best enjoyed with the sound turned up. And it may not be safe for work. Enjoy!



4 - We meet Cassandra Montrose, Lady Colchester, fresh out of mourning for an unfaithful husband. Far from eager to attach herself to another man, Cassandra dallies with a known seducer, determined to have at least one night of passion before embarking on the rest of her ladylike days.

5 - Lord Vincent Sinclair is a jaded rake of the highest order. Second son of the addled Duke of Pembroke, he has every expectation that his upcoming marriage to Lady Letitia will hardly cause a ripple in his quest to take his pleasure whenever desire strikes. And his appetite for that is legendary.

6 - Vincent was the villain of the first Pembroke Palace book, In My Wildest Fantasies. That book introduced Vincent as an angry, brooding brother to Devon Sinclair, with a major grudge against his elder sibling. Being a great fan of the gray character, I stand in awe of my cousin's ability to turn such a dark character like Vincent into someone I can fall in love with.

7 - Sexual tension flares up immediately for Cassandra and Vincent. As with all of Julianne's couples, each offers an emotional release to the other that simmers along with the sexual arousal. Julianne returns her two lovers to a state of courting, which only heightens the tension level to brow-mopping intensity.

8 - Julianne gives us a fascinating look into the fallen woman character with Cassandra. We relate to her completely at the beginning of the story. As she finds herself thrust into a social role for which she never planned, we see inside the complexities of choice, consequence and self-image. It's a perfect balance to Vincent's journey from his brother Devon's villain to this story's hero.

9 - I really, really love Julianne's way with a hottie hero. Here's our first impression of Vincent (from his book, not Devon's!):

"Lord Vincent Sinclair kicked open the door of the sumptuous London hotel room with staggering brute force and carried Cassandra Montrose, Lady Colchester, over the threshold. He had kissed her senseless in the carriage the entire way there. He grinned and kicked the door shut behind him.

Pulling his white cambric bow tie and unbuttoning the top of his shirt, he smiled with devilish intent. 'I quite assure you, Lady Colchester, I have not yet begun to be a bad influence. My best is yet to come.' "

10 - Julianne really knows how to end each chapter with a hook. Like this, for example:

" 'You are very appealing when you choose to be, Vincent,' she told him, 'and you are a handsome man. That can be blinding for even the most sensible of women. I hope you will consider that when you become a husband.'

He seemed surprised by her sudden desire to steer him in the direction of his conscience, when clearly neither he, nor she, believed he possessed one.

'Indeed I shall,' he replied nevertheless, 'though I don't recommend getting your hopes up. We both know I will be a dismal failure at matrimony. I'm simply not cut out to be faithful.'

She sighed over the fact that he had not changed, and likely never would. His brow furrowed with displeasure. Or was it annoyance? She wasn't sure what to make of it.

'At least my mother will be close at hand to repair the damage when I live up to your meager expectations.' With that, he stood and walked out.

***

Immediately after leaving Cassandra's bedside, Vincent entered his own bedchamber and saw his great-grandmother's necklace - the famous Pembroke Sapphire - sitting in an open velvet box on the bed. He stared at the dark blue stone for a moment, saw in his mind a headstone with Cassandra's name on it, then slammed the door so hard, the vase on the dressing table toppled to the floor and smashed to a thousand pieces."

11 - Julianne switches POV seamlessly between Cassandra and Vincent, often in the midst of a heightened emotional scene. It only serves to further reveal plot and character, a sure touch from a writer at the top of her game.

12 - There are no secondary characters who serve as set dressing in any of Julianne's books. Even Vincent's ducal-approved fiancee, Lady Letitia is three-dimensional. A character revealed only through letters, memory and conversation is especially haunting.

13 - I leave you with an excerpt. Enjoy!

" A short time later he was trotting up to the palace on his horse. He stopped to look up at the brightly lit drawing room window above. Letitia passed in front of it, unaware of his presence below. She stood for a moment with her back to him, chattering on about something to someone, then walked away.

Devon came to look out the window next and looked down at him with a cool stare, as if he knew where he had been all night and greatly disapproved.

Contempt shuddered through Vincent as he imagined going up there and sitting down with the rest of them. They would ask where he had been. Devon might even call him to the study to have a reproachful word with him about his activities and remind him of his duty to the family. His brother would warn him not to become distracted and tell him to spend more time at the palace.

Devon had already fulfilled his duty by marrying Rebecca. They were all depending on each other to safeguard their inheritances. Vincent watched him raise a brandy glass to his lips and turn from the window when his wife slipped her arm through his and drew him away.

Outside, alone in the dark, Vincent remained seated on a restless horse that could not, for some reason, keep still.

He felt restless himself. He did not want to be here. He wanted to be at the dower house, in those small, cozy rooms, sitting by a fire.

He turned and gazed back in that direction. It would be wrong to return. Cassandra would most certainly be angry with him. It could spoil everything. He should not do it.

But he wanted so badly just to kick in his heels and urge his horse to a gallop - to speed across the moonlit hills and feel the wind in his hair, to leap over this particular hurdle in his life.

He looked up at the full moon and watched the wispy clouds float in front of it, thin and transparent, incapable of dimming its illumination.

He breathed deeply, seeking the calmness and dispassion he required to get through his betrothal to Letitia, his usual detachment, but all he felt was an ache of longing deep inside his chest. It was so relentless and severe, it almost made him double over in pain.

In the end he did what he knew he should not do. He kicked in his heels and galloped off.

***

Cassandra looked out the window at the full moon overhead and thought wistfully about the many hours she had spent with Vincent over the past few weeks, strolling leisurely to the river, speaking openly about so many things.

She had not expected it to be so pleasant. Not with him - the man whose heart she had believed was made of stone. This strange arrangement of theirs had been going on for quite some time now without a single hitch. Beneath all the courtesy and manners, she had been fighting against a new kind of desire that simply would not die.

Every time Vincent stepped out of his coach, dressed in his elegant black coat and top hat, smiling up at her with those dark, mesmerizing eyes, she melted. She fell to pieces like a lovesick pup that did not know the meaning of restraint.

But she did know the meaning of it, and she understood the consequences of giving in to temptation. She could never endure the heartache of sharing him with another woman. She was simply not built that way. If she loved someone, it would have to be all or nothing. She could not settle for less, and was still not sure Vincent was capable of such a devoted love, for he was broken inside.

Or was she wrong about that? she wondered as she stared out the window at the darkness beyond. She had been wrong about so many other things, and he'd done nothing but surprise her over the past few weeks.

A moment later she was tipping the crystal decanter over a glass. She took a sip and strolled back to the window. It was a beautiful night. She raised the glass to her lips when a nervous fluttering arose in her belly, for she spotted a man. He was sitting under the tree on the bank of the river at the bottom of the hill. The moonlight was reflecting off the water, and he was silhouetted against the sparkling ripples. His horse was tethered to the tree, its long neck bowed down to the grass.

It was Vincent - that much she knew, even though it was impossible to identify anyone from such a distance in the darkness.

What was he doing there? She had heard him leave almost two hours ago. Had he been sitting there all this time, or had he left and returned?

She set her glass down on the table. If she knew what was good for her, she would go back to bed this instant and forget she ever saw him. But that would require her to guzzle the entire contents of what remained in the brandy decanter, enough to knock her out until dawn, because the fact of the matter was - she cared for him. She cared for him a great deal. And somehow she knew that he needed her."

- Julianne MacLean - 2008

In My Wildest Fantasies by Julianne MacLean

I just finished reading my cousin's latest historical romance yesterday morning on the bus ride into work. It only took me a week to gobble it up - which for me is really speedy.

This is the first of her new Pembroke Palace series, following the mad attempts of the Duke of Pembroke to break his family's curse and have all of his sons married off before Christmas. Devon Sinclair is the eldest son and the pressure is on to find himself a bride before his father uproots every last plant and shrub on the palace grounds to ward off the flood he fears is coming.

Devon is disturbed by his father's mental state when he returns from several years abroad in America. He needed to put some distance between himself and his brother Vincent after a tragic accident severed their familial bonds. But on his return, Devon finds that his father believes an ancient family curse is destined to carry them all away in the rising waters that have England drenched in an unrelentingly wet spring. This in itself would be distressing, but the duke has legally changed his will in order to force his sons' hands.

So Devon sets himself to the task at hand, delighted that a young neighbor, Rebecca Newland has arrived for the ball thrown by his father. He once came to her aid when she and her father, the Earl of Creighton, were stranded in a driver-less coach in a fog-shrouded wood. Devon has no idea the young lady has done nothing but dream of him every day since then.

Rebecca has grown up tucked away in her father's house, trying to help him cope with chronic pain and an aversion to leaving his home. She's compensated for her lack of society by feasting upon a diary she found secreted away, which tells the romantic and erotic tale of Lydie and her lover, Jess. Devon finds himself attracted to a woman who is technically an innocent - but not in her dreams.

This book is a true delight for all you fantasizers out there. I know I'm a card-carrying member. Imagine if you will the object of your girlish fantasies. Now just imagine if that very man appeared in person, was attracted to you (yes, YOU!), and Fate joined you to this man as an inheritance-preserving wife.

Don't stop there. Imagine if you read a scintillating diary to him, one you'd read to yourself over and over until you knew it by heart. Imagine if your dream man was no longer a dream - but flesh and blood, listening to you read those very words even as he makes them come to life with his own hands and lips. It's so mind-blowing and so hot it makes me melt.

Of course, nothing could work out so perfectly, and Julianne throws several nasty flies into this intoxicating ointment. But for now I'll leave you with an excerpt that shows you what could happen if your dream man walked into your bedroom - for real...


Excerpt


Oxfordshire, England, April 1874

" 'Why don't you turn to your favorite entry,' he said.

Seated on the edge of the bed, she looked up at him. I should not let this go further, she thought. I should ask him to leave.

She opened the book and flipped through the pages near the start, and began to read aloud.

'Dear Diary,
Today was my birthday, and Jess gave me a beautiful white stone he had found on a beach when he was a boy. He told me he'd been keeping it all these years just for me, even though we met only six months ago. I will never, ever part with it, Diary. Not as long as I live.

But that is not all that happened today, for I was very, very wicked, and if Mother and Father knew what I had done, they would surely send me away.'

Rebecca stopped reading and glanced up at Devon, who was listening attentively. She cleared her throat to continue.

'I never felt such wild desire and passionate yearnings in my body.'

Rebecca stopped reading again when Devon slowly sat down beside her.

'Continue,' he said.

Feeling the heat of his muscular thigh touching hers on the bed, she fought her own dizzying desires and swallowed nervously.

'He kissed the side of my neck while he eased me onto my back.'

Devon leaned closer and pressed his open mouth to her neck, just below the line of her jaw. His warm, wet tongue sent gooseflesh tingling down her body, as he suckled downward to the juncture at her shoulder.

She went weak all over, and was powerless to resist the lure of erotic sensation as he laid her down on the soft mattress.

'Keep reading,' he whispered between kisses as he tasted the base of her throat. Rebecca barely managed to hold the book open in front of her.

'He unbuttoned the top of my nightdress and kissed my breasts, until I was filled with such hunger, it was all I could do to keep from crying out.'

Devon had already begun to unbutton her gown, and quivering as she was with desire, she could not continue to hold the book. She let it fall to the bed and reached up to touch his face. She had wanted this for so long. He had been living in her heart for four lonely years.

With dark, mischievous seduction in his eyes he crawled over her on all fours. He began nuzzling her breasts with his lips and cheeks, tickling her with his hair, dropping wet kisses down the center of her trembling belly until she gasped with delight.

'What happens next?' he asked."

- Julianne MacLean, 2007