Review Tuesday: Lady Varney's Risque Business (#regency #review #romance @CeriseDeLand)

Lady Varney’s Risqué Business: A Regency Romp by Cerise DeLand

Amazon Digital Services, 2014

I’ve frequently hosted Cerise DeLand as my guest at Beyond Romance, and always enjoyed her excerpts, but I’d never read any of her books. When she mentioned that one of her Regencies was on sale for just 99 cents a few months ago, I decided to remedy this omission.

The recently widowed Lady Kitty Varney has an impeccable reputation. She’s welcome in salons, drawing rooms and ballrooms throughout the realm and has access to the upper echelons of society. Given her fashionable attire and aristocratic demeanor, no one would dream she’s close to penniless. In truth, her selfish and shiftless husband bequeathed her nothing but his gambling debts. To extricate herself from these financial difficulties, she undertakes the highly delicate occupation of matchmaker and marriage consultant for her peers.

Viscount Justin Belmont is the last individual she expects to find requesting her services. Years before, when he was merely the bastard of an English lord, he’d rescued Kitty from pirates and delivered her, intact, to her family, but they’d refused to allow her to wed the American ship captain. Now Justin’s fortunes have changed. Adopted as his noble uncle’s heir, he has moved to England and, under pressure from his guardian, is seeking a wife. When Justin lays out his criteria for an acceptable bride, Kitty realizes that she’s almost a perfect match—with one fatal exception. Justin’s uncle requires that his ward wed a wealthy woman. Despite appearances, Lady Varney can never provide the expected dowry. Kitty must come to terms with the fact that the man she loves will necessarily marry someone else.

Overall I enjoyed this brief, lively novella. I appreciated Kitty’s cleverness, her courage and ingenuity in the face of adversity. It’s a pleasant change to have a heroine who’s mature, self-confident and knowledgeable, as opposed to a clueless virgin. The snappy dialogue entertained and the lengthy sex scene, in which Kitty “auditions” for the role for Justin’s wife, is deliciously sensual if historically somewhat dubious.

However, I had the same problem with Lady Varney’s Risqué Business as I do with most of the romance I read. The story is totally predictable. There’s no suspense at all. The conflicts feel fake. Every reader knows that the obstacles to Justin’s and Kitty’s relationship won’t remain a serious barrier for long. When Justin apparently takes Kitty’s refusal to heart and courts another woman, it’s obvious he’s bluffing. Kitty and Justine are destined for their happily ever after from page one.

For many romance readers, this is a plus, not a negative. They like being reassured that the characters will finally be together. And I guess they don’t really care too much about the plausibility of the plot as the author moves her creations around on the fictional stage. The HEA is the payoff.

I prefer a book where the author keeps me guessing, up to the very end, whether the relationship in question will actually manage to survive. In fact, I don’t require a happy ending at all, but if the author does manage pull one out of her hat, I want to be surprised and delighted. I don’t want to take it for granted.

That’s just me. Millions of romance readers feel differently. That’s lucky for Cerise and all the other authors of “classic” romance whom I host, and rather unfortunate for me!

Another Regency Romp from Cerise DeLand

Everyone loves Cinderella story. Why not have one with a mystery about why and how such a lovely woman is so impoverished and treated so badly by her relatives?

Cerise DeLand does it for you in Rendezvous with a Duke, the second in her Regency Romps series. (The first is Lady Varney’s Risque Business.)

Anna Fournier never intended to fall in love. Not with any man. Especially not a duke. But Hugh Lattimer persists in courting her despite the scandal that surrounds her—and the innuendo that could ruin him.

Can she escape her past and embrace a future as Hugh's duchess? Or will the man who murdered her father ruin her future once and for all?

Need a nibble?

Of Course you do!

Excerpt

“Your Grace?”

Hugh whirled to face his coachman, the wind biting into his hope that Anna would venture out to meet him on such a bitter day.

“Yes, Warren. What is it?”

The man huddled in his woolen livery, frozen, rubbing his hands together.

“We hired the man’s hack for two hours. But the horses are very cold standing as they are, Your Grace. Can I not make a circle of the garden to stir their blood a bit?”

“Yes, do.” He could not keep his good servant out in such hideous weather.

That was unkind. Unnecessary.

He stared down the lane again, narrowing his eyes.

She was…

There! Coming toward him. It was she in that horrible brown hat and coat.

He strode toward her. Then broke into a jog. His hat bobbed and he whipped

it off, tucked it under his arm. “Anna!”

She broke into a smile, beaming at him, her pace quickening, her lips tremulous with what? Cold? Fear? Delight?

He caught her to him. The thrilling feel of her, her curves to his form, her warmth to his welcome. His lips went to the corner of her eye, the point of her nose and hovered over her lips.

“You waited,” she breathed, her words laced with panic, her golden gaze flowing over him with triumph.

“I did. I had to hope.”

She cupped his jaw. “I apologize for being late. I could not get away.”

“But you came. How?”

“A hack. And then, I left him at the bridge and walked.”

Hugh enveloped her in his arms. “There is no one here to see you or me. It’s too damn cold.”

She chuckled, her arms wrapping around his waist as easily as if she belonged to him and he to her. She trained her eyes on his breastplate and ribbons. “But you wore a uniform.”

“I did. As you commanded.” He turned to one side and wove her arm through his. “Come, let me get you into a carriage.”

“Oh, no.” She hung back. “I cannot. Really, Kendal.”

“You’re frozen. So am I. And there beyond,” he said nodding toward Warren who stood with the hack door open, “is my coachman. I hired a vehicle. Did not bring my own.”

“You have crests on yours, I suppose,” she said, sounding tentative but walking briskly with him anyway.

“Yes, they all do. I would not chance discovery.”

“I do appreciate that.”

They stopped in front of the hack’s open door.

Hugh took both her gloved hands, her fingers cold as icicles. “Few seem to be in the Gardens. I’ll take you if wish. Or you can step into my conveyance, hired especially for this afternoon, and warm yourself with the bricks and the brandy I have tucked inside.”

Her eyes, alive with yearning, examined his. Still she hesitated. “I don’t want to walk.”

He understood her tentative tone, an objection to the privacy of his coach. “I would never hurt you. If you will do me the honor to climb up in there, we might have an hour or more of good conversation.”

“And brandy,” she added with a twinkle in her brilliant eyes.

“And bricks.”

“I want to.”

“Do.”

She swallowed, then smiled at Warren with a hint of apology.

Hugh told her, “You can sit in one corner and I in the opposite seat.”

Acceptance defined her exquisite features. “And here I had imagined us sitting side by side as we did at dinner last night.”

If he had envisioned himself as a cave man seizing her, enjoying her, it was nothing to the urge now to grasp her in his arms and take her lips, her heart, her mind and make them his. Reason, somehow, arrested him instead. “Sit wherever you like, my darling. I live to make you smile.”

She flowed up to him. Her gloved hands cupping his jaw, she rose on her toes and brushed her lips on his.

My god.

She undid him. All his noble intentions gone. His earnest statements that he would protect her from his baser urges now hollow. Still, he could not move, paralyzed with wanting more of her.

“You must climb in first,” she told him, an impish glimmer in her eyes. “The better to give me a choice.”

He grunted, incapable of words. Then he did as she bade him. Falling back against the far corner of the wooden bench, he shoved his shako to the floor.

He watched her as she put one foot upon the block and let Warren take her

hand to lead her up inside. And there before him, she met his gaze and waited as Warren shut the coach door. She seemed cast in bronze, unmoving, studying him. Then putting one knee to his bench, she leaned over him, descending to a breath away. “Kiss me, won’t you, Kendal? I’ve dreamed of no one but you for months.”

* * * * *

Rendezvous with a Duke

Amazon ARe NOOK KOBO iTunes Coming Soon!

Lady Varney’s Risque Business

Amazon ARe: NOOK: KOBO: iTunes Coming Soon!

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Sneak Peek: Do Him Right by Cerise DeLand

[My friend Cerise asked if I could share some of her news with you. When you read her steamy excerpt, you'll be glad I said yes! ~ Lisabet]

Blurb

Shana Carpenter ruined rodeo champion Chet Stapleton years ago with hastily written words. Now a PR pro, she's engineered a plan to make amends. She'll successfully promote his rodeo, soothe her conscience and leave. Trouble is, she can't keep her hands off the smooth talker or call a halt to their smokin'-hot sex.

Chet takes one glance at Shana and develops an itch to put his boots under her bed...permanently. He's won awards for taming willful fillies so he can't understand why he can't break Shana's stubborn refusal to open up to him.

The closer Shana gets to Chet, the more she wants to stay in his life and his bed. But to do that, she'll have to tell him everything—and risk his rejection. One thing is certain, if Shana doesn't put the past to rest, she'll never be able to grab the future—or the cowboy she wants most.

Excerpt

Scene takes place in Chet’s rodeo office in southwest Texas on a sweltering August morning.

“Miz Carpenter? Ma’am?” Chet Stapleton raised his voice, but he definitely sounded strained, as if he were strangling.

“Hmm?” She lifted her chin and shook back her shoulder-length, platinum curls.

He swallowed, loudly. “What’ll it be? Water? Soda?” He raised a hand to buzz his assistant on the intercom. “We have coffee too, if that’s your poison.”

“No.” You are. My fixation. Ever since, I wrote that article about you in the sports section of the Dallas paper four years ago. Ever since I printed a retraction, resigned for my foolishness and began to plan how I’d make more amends. Now I’m going even nuttier, contemplating how I can take you into my bed and kiss the hurt away.

She squeezed her labia together and felt a trickle of perspiration wend its way between her breasts.

“Water. Cool water. Please.”

“Two waters, Reata,” he told his assistant as he squinted at Shana and looked for all the world like a guy who was trying to concentrate.

Shana would have laughed, but the lure of him had her wiggling forward in her chair to try to massage her pulsing cunt. Four years ago she had been frightened by her response to his languid cowboy sexuality. She’d been young, twenty-two, in her first job at a newspaper and so naïve, both professionally and sexually. Since she’d ruined Chet, she’d corrected both lacks. Now she thoroughly examined whatever she did before she opened her mouth or typed one word. To complement that, she also knew what she liked in men. Honest, forthright, funny. Still no man yet had rung her bells more than a few times. Hunky, jovial Chet Stapleton could definitely compete.

The man was drool worthy. With his bronzed skin, that sun-kissed shock of yellow-gold hair hanging over his forehead, he was the epitome of testosterone. His rock-hewn features with generous lips and a mellow bass voice melted her into a puddle of foolish desire. No past lover could compare . Sometimes when she felt really low and foolish, she put down this lack in her life to a penance for doing him wrong and declaring he was a hothead with the judges.

Once more, regret flooded her, and she reprimanded herself. She was here to use her brains to heal the wounds she’d made. She had not come here to use her body to confuse the issue. She had to stop thinking like a horny lunatic.

Stifling a moan, she bent and dug through her briefcase for her copy of the PR proposal. All thumbs, she couldn’t find the thing.

“Problems?”

His tone was husky. Dark and suggestive. She looked up to see Chet devouring her with those wide green eyes, his look hypnotic, his mouth parting. A vision of him using that mouth to tantalize her sensitive nipples made her groan.

“Chair not comfortable?” he asked, suddenly solicitous.

“Oh. No. No, no. I’m fine. Chair’s fine.” Brain’s dead, but my pussy’s on fire.

“Here’s your water,” he said, sounding relieved when his assistant walked in, handed both to him then shut the door behind her.

He sprang up to give Shana one of the bottles. “Would you like a glass? Ice?”

“No. Thanks.” Shana stuck out her hand. “Water’s good. No glass.”

But when he reached out to give it to her, her fingers touched his, and this time, the shock was electric. Riveting.

She yelped.

He clamped her hand to his rock-hard chest and rubbed her fingers. “Christ, sorry. You okay?”

“Sure.” She stared up at him, automatically reaching out to caress her own burning hand and, in the process, his ribs too. “Are you hurt?”

“Feels like nothing I’ve ever known before.” He put his other hand on top of hers and stroked her from fingertips to forearm as if she were a cat in heat.

“This has never happened to me before either.” I’ve never met a man I wanted within minutes of meeting him. I’m too cerebral, my friend Liz says. Too careful. But you I want soon.

His voice was a rasp when he drew her up. “Let me make it up to you.”

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BUY LINK: http://www.ellorascave.com/do-him-right.html

Also available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes and Kobo

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And some more news... Five Regencies Release in Next 3 Weeks!

Then, hold on to your hat, because Cerise has five Regencies on the shelves in the next 3 weeks!

Yes, FIVE.

First, a box set of four spicy Regencies about a family that endures a curse upon those among them who dare to marry for love. Doomed to failure, four brothers in the Stanhope family fall for wonderful women…and fear the end of their love affairs because of a tragic curse.

Still, lured by the women they adore, the men cannot turn their loved ones away.

Four men, four brides, four marriages fight the test of The Stanhope Challenge, A Regency Quartet!

Then in her new series of Regency Romps, Cerise debuts the re-issue of Lady Varney’s Risqué Business.

Oh, yes, Lady Varney runs a very risqué business, arranging “interviews” for marriageable young toffs to meet ladies acceptable to their tastes…and their proclivities. But when newly minted heir to an earldom Justin Belmont appears in her drawing room, wishing to hire her services for that precise reason, she balks.

How can she possibly find Justin the best bride when her heart says it should be she…and he demands she be among those he “interviews”?