No True Gentleman

Renee put up a post about her thoughts on No True Gentleman by Liz Carlyle here.

I'll say right off that I liked this book much, much more than Beauty Like the Night which I talked about earlier. I would give it a B+ because although it was original and refreshing there were no scenes that made me gasp or tear up or want to re-read parts so, not so much a keeper. Not saying it's leaving the house but, one I might not get back to again in the near future.

So we have Catherine Wodeway who has been a widow for 2 years and is feeling horribly lonely. The good news is that she loved her first husband although she married him when they were both very young. There were a couple of moments where Catherine compared her first husband to the hero Max but I think that would only be natural. Also she is a very straight forward thinker and not burdened by missish qualities or shyness. She fought her older brother to marry her first husband (although that is not mentioned in this book, I only know that because I read BLTN) so I knew she would be just as determined to marry a man like Max.

Max de Rohan is harder to define. He is a policeman, no wait... a magistrate...no... hmmm, let's just say he is no true gentleman although maybe he has a title but, it is from another country and I don't know enough about the English class system to know if an Italian (French?) Viscount would be considered equal to the British Viscount. Phew, long sentence but, you get my point.

Max is my dream hero with enough angst to make him edgy and it is based on situations that ring true. Not those puffed up, 'ow, I hurt' kind of situations that can be annoying and immature but a situation of violent loss and a scandal that has plagued him in his career. He is also a man who thinks that contentment is enough for his life and he tries to hold to this when he meets Catherine.

So they meet, he offends her, she reacts appropriately (in my estimation), they re-meet, apologies, attraction, fighting against the attraction and then a whole bunch of stuff that just made me happy. Nope, don't want to spoil it for someone. Just that it is nice to find a go-getter heroine who can also get mad as hell and react the way a normal person would. It was also nice to see the hero almost brought to his knees by his bad behavior. Gotta love that!

Oh, did I mention the murder? Who cares really, except for Max and the police but I wasn't reading for that. I forgot to mention that the book is also very sensual and sexual which also made me a happy camper. Also, I am vastly intrigued by Bentham (Catherine's brother) now that he has grown up from BLTN and I may be forced to dig out his story. Let's hope I have it. All the same, I don't like to read too many books by the same author back to back. Even when I know the author is writing keepers and has a huge backlist I try to space them out.

Thanks to Keishon for her TBR Challenges that force me out of my comfort zone and make me try new authors! Looking forward to the New Year (if you're still up to it)!

On that note I'm not sure how much time I will have for reading. I now have a semi-complete basement to get put back to rights and some painting that probably needs to be done (no probably about it!). Also, there are those craft gifts that I need to get to.

Dang! Also, my e-mail is bouncing and yahoo can't seem to find me. So if you have sent me an e-mail on a group I may not have seen it.