Title: My Darling, My DisasterAuthor: Amalie Howard, Angie Morgan
Series: Lords of Essex #2
First Published: March 27, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Pages: 412
Genre: Historical Romance, Regency, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Rating:
Synopsis:
Lord Graham Findlay, the shamelessly virile Viscount Northridge, has a disgraceful secret, one he’ll do anything to hide. Holding his passions at bay, Gray has sworn off the fairer sex. But when temptation comes in the form of an intriguing woman he cannot easily avoid, Gray’s integrity—and his most depraved desires—are put to the ultimate test.
Self-assured and carefree Princess Svetlanka Volkonsky never dreamed she would one day become a lady’s maid to avoid a dangerous traitor. But danger also comes in many guises, especially in the sinful and devastatingly attractive lord of the manor who introduces her to a world of singular pleasure.
When Lana’s past emerges to threaten the life and the false identity she’s built in England, she and Gray find themselves falling into a tangled web of lies and intrigue...and the last place either of them expected to fall...in love.
My Darling, My Disaster follows a dual timeline with the first book in the Lords of Essex series, My Rogue, My Ruin.
Each book in the Lords of Essex series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed out of order.
Review
I struggled to finish this book and it was a shame because I actually wanted to like it. The characters are animated and have personality, the main plot about Lana’s escape and her attempts to investigate the traitors is intriguing, and there was genuine heat between the main characters that developed at a good pace—so where did things go wrong?
The best I can come up with was simply that it was a combination of several small problems that eventually became big problems for me. It was overlong, tried to juggle too many plot lines at once, and even the love scenes between Graham and Lana started to get tiring to read. In the beginning I was genuinely immersed, but by the halfway point I found myself bored to tears.
I hadn’t read the first book in the Lords of Essex series, it’s advertised that you can read the books in any order as is the norm for regency romance series. The books take place during the same timeline and readers are given a sort of cliff notes retelling of the first book. I found these extra scenes confusing initially, as they seemed to be of importance and I assumed they had to do with Lana’s Russia plot. Pieces of the story story showed up at seemingly random times and I found them distracting. When I realized they had nothing to do with the main story line beyond a wink and a nudge I lost interest. What’s worse is that it seems like a major spoiler is tossed in that I’m fairly certain was a pretty big twist in the first novel. While reading I had considered picking up the first book to learn more about Brynn but ended up deciding against it. Why bother when the mystery is gone?
A casualty of this back and forth was the male lead, Graham, whose personality and moods shifted wildly. He was charming initially, but later I found him to be quite dense. He stayed blind to the obvious simply because of plot. The more I read, the more I disliked him, and that just doesn’t work in a romance novel. It’s unfortunate that by the end I had completely checked out of the book. I had hoped the book could redeem itself despite the messy plot. The climax did an alright job wrapping everything up, but then I sighed as I was forced to sit through sex followed by a separate discussion of having even more sex. Almost a solid 10% of the the book is spent on this. It’s bad when the spicy bits start to become tiring.
I think that the authors have some promise, they have some good ideas that were simply executed poorly. I think if they had focused the story more directly on the main two characters and separated it from the previous novel it would’ve gone so much better. It makes sense that it would have to take place in a similar time frame given that Lana is Brynn’s maid, but you’ve got to leave some of the good parts for readers to discover in the other book.
Quote
“Has anything ever been nearly in your grasp and all you had to do was reach out and take it, but you were too afraid of what the consequences would bring?”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Amalie Howard
Amalie Howard is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author. Always Be My Duchess was one of Cosmopolitan’s 30 Best Romance Books and The Beast of Beswick was one of Oprah Daily’s 24 Best Historical Romance Novels to Read. She is also the author of several award-winning, critically acclaimed novels for teens and younger readers. Her young adult release Queen Bee was a Target book club pick and was named “A true diamond of the first water” by ALA Booklist. Her books have been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, and Seventeen Magazine. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading, being the president of her one-woman Harley Davidson motorcycle club, or power-napping. She lives in Colorado with her family.
About Angie Morgan
Angie is the author of several critically acclaimed young adult and middle grade books written under two other names (Page Morgan and Angie Frazier), and is now thrilled to be leaping into the world of adult romance. My Rogue, My Ruin is the first of three books in her new Lords of Essex series, co-written with good friend and fellow author, Amalie Howard. Angie lives in New Hampshire with her husband, their three daughters, and a menagerie of pets.
Discover more from Radical Dreamer
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
