One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean

Sorry, I'm going to blame my book club (which does not read romance novels I'm sad to report) for my delay in blogging but really our last book was, while long, not as time consuming as some of our others have been (Luminaries anyone?).

So Sarah MacLean won me over years ago with her ridiculously long titled Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord.  Since then there have been one or two that weren't quite up to that standard.  This one I enjoyed a lot.  I will admit that almost all of its merit rely on sexual tension. Which really, if you can pull off 374 pages on sexual tension, well, hats off.

Phillipa is a scientist in 1831 and she is to be married to a very nice simple honest gentleman in fifteen days.  She decides that since she doesn't understand sex, she must find a man to explain it all to her so she does not go into her marriage uninformed.

Cross is an erstwhile Earl in his own right who now runs the most successful gaming hell in London. He tragically failed his family seven years ago and is now embroiled in a plot against his sister that he must subvert.

If I have complaints, it would be that the book is just a bit long. That there could have been more sex, even if not consummation which Cross refuses to engage in, of course.  But Pippa is lovely and I always enjoy the evolution of how a hero sees his heroine changes as he falls in love with her.

Historical Romance 2013: 4 out of 5 philtrums.

Sarah MacLean "Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing A Lord"

My spouse tells me title capitalization is so 1990. So I guess this should be Ten ways to be adored when landing a lord, but then I'm not submitting this to any scholarly journals for publication.

I have a bit of a reputation, among my friends. No, not that sort of reputation. A reputation for reading these books, so when we got together for my birthday, a little late, I got quite a few random romance novels. This was part of the pile and while the Harlequin were epic failures, TWTBAWLAL (I had to!) was a surprise gem.

Isabel is the daughter of the wastrel Earl and over the years she's had to take care of the manor as if she were a medieval lady of the manor trying to make it self sufficient. In addition, she seems to have taken in women with problems and hidden them from others who might be looking for them. She's finally at the end of her rope, has to sell a collection of statuary so she asks Lord Nicholas St. John to visit to appraise them. Things develop from there.

Really with this title and the completely pedestrian premise I expected very little from this book so was very pleasantly surprised. Isabel is a smart determined almost realistic character and Nicholas's arch from masterful proper lord to bewitched down to earth besotted cutie, well, it made me smile. And I can't ask for much more than that.

Historical Romance 2010: 4.5 of 5 slippery roof tiles.