A Comfortable Wife

Rating:
Summary: Beware
Review: This is an older Stephanie Laurens book and different than her current books. Short, simple, and little to no senuality throughout. I did like the characters and subplot, but found myself skimming and not reading (which I don't like to do). I finished it, and was happy to do so.

Rating:
Summary: Insufficient romantic tension - book too long for the story
Review: This is another of Laurens' earlier - and thus much better-written - novels. A Comfortable Wife pre-dates the Cynster series by some years, and thus carries much more in the way of an authentic 'feel' about it. It is also far less formulaic than her later work. In that case, it should be much, much better as a novel - and yet it is not.

Antonia Mannering has been shut away in the country taking care of her sick mother for many years; thus, she is in her mid-twenties and still not presented and has not been in Society much at all. Now orphaned, she is visiting her godmother, the Dowager Countess Ruthven - who is stepmother to Antonia's childhood friend Philip, Lord Ruthven (*not* Lord Philip Ruthven, as the cover claims). Years ago, Philip and Antonia used to play together, but will he still remember her when they meet again? Antonia has decided that she would like to marry her old friend, and that she would make him the sort of comfortable wife he needs. In his early 30s now, he is a rake, but he needs to settle down and have an heir for his estate.

Philip, on first seeing Antonia again, is struck by her beauty and remembers how much he enjoyed her company. Reluctantly - for he suspects a plot - he is drawn to spend more and more time with her, and realises that he wants to marry her. (He's fallen in love with her, but - as with many of her other books - Laurens fails to *show* him falling in love, realising he's in love and deciding what to do about it). The proposal comes less than halfway through the book. Result: romantic tension at an end.

Antonia agrees to marry Philip, but only if he will keep their engagement a secret until she's been to London for the Little Season. As she explains, she's been out of Society for so long that she has no idea how to behave. She's worried that she'll be a bad wife to him, that she will somehow disgrace him by not knowing how to behave. Thus we have half a book-full of misunderstandings, mishaps and pointless silliness while Antonia finds her way through the traps of the Polite World. And just as we think the torture is over, yet another pointless misunderstanding occurs.

Laurens would have been better off making this book a novella, lengthening the courtship in the first few chapters and eliminating just about everything after the couple arrives in London - it would have been a far better story that way.

wmr-uk

Rating:
Summary: Insufficient romantic tension - book too long for the story
Review: This is another of Laurens' earlier - and thus much better-written - novels. A Comfortable Wife pre-dates the Cynster series by some years, and thus carries much more in the way of an authentic `feel' about it. It is also far less formulaic than her later work. In that case, it should be much, much better as a novel - and yet it is not.

Antonia Mannering has been shut away in the country taking care of her sick mother for many years; thus, she is in her mid-twenties and still not presented and has not been in Society much at all. Now orphaned, she is visiting her godmother, the Dowager Countess Ruthven - who is stepmother to Antonia's childhood friend Philip, Lord Ruthven (*not* Lord Philip Ruthven, as the cover claims). Years ago, Philip and Antonia used to play together, but will he still remember her when they meet again? Antonia has decided that she would like to marry her old friend, and that she would make him the sort of comfortable wife he needs. In his early 30s now, he is a rake, but he needs to settle down and have an heir for his estate.

Philip, on first seeing Antonia again, is struck by her beauty and remembers how much he enjoyed her company. Reluctantly - for he suspects a plot - he is drawn to spend more and more time with her, and realises that he wants to marry her. (He's fallen in love with her, but - as with many of her other books - Laurens fails to *show* him falling in love, realising he's in love and deciding what to do about it). The proposal comes less than halfway through the book. Result: romantic tension at an end.

Antonia agrees to marry Philip, but only if he will keep their engagement a secret until she's been to London for the Little Season. As she explains, she's been out of Society for so long that she has no idea how to behave. She's worried that she'll be a bad wife to him, that she will somehow disgrace him by not knowing how to behave. Thus we have half a book-full of misunderstandings, mishaps and pointless silliness while Antonia finds her way through the traps of the Polite World. And just as we think the torture is over, yet another pointless misunderstanding occurs.

Laurens would have been better off making this book a novella, lengthening the courtship in the first few chapters and eliminating just about everything after the couple arrives in London - it would have been a far better story that way.

wmr-uk

Rating:
Summary: Ho-hum(yawn)
Review: This is the most boring book I have read this year. You can easily read every third page (just so you don't feel guilty for spending the money)and greatfully get to the end in an hour.

Rating:
Summary: Waist of Time
Review: This was the third Lauren's book that I read and was not very impressed. This book had one to many "humphs" and enough about Catriona and Ambrose!!!! This story lacked focus on the main characters. I recomend the Cynster books not this. Skip this and go to the series. They are well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: The worst book I have read to date
Review: Where to start? I hate this book. I would give it negative stars if I could.

This book is a horrible caricature of a true Regency novel. It's not witty, compelling, or sophisticated like the novels of Georgette Heyer. To compare this author to Ms. Heyer is a gross injustice. There is enough brow raising and chin lifting in this one novel to fill hundreds of Regency stories. The writing is atrocious, and the dialog is repetitive. Overuses of the word "inveigle," "subsumed," and a handful of other ten dollar words convice me that the author is in love with her thesaurus. There are sentences with no verbs. Other poorly constructed sentences such as "let her senses slide into a world of sensation," run rampant, ...

About 40 miserable pages into this novel, I decided to start over. Since I was deriving no enjoyment from it whatsoever, I wanted to really examine the writing. The result was gorge rising. I was lost in a world of the most purple of prose. Where to focus? Perhaps the overuse of the word "gaze" (I stopped counting once the word was used 100 times) or maybe the tendency of our heroine's chin to lift or tilt all the time (she should have a doctor look at that), but what really grabbed my attention was how many times the characters lifted their respective brows. I counted. The hero lifts his brow sardonically, haughtily, resignedly, and every other way you can imagine 55 times. The heroine raises hers only 22 times and the other characters hit the all time low of 5 times. In a given exchange, the hero can raise his brows up to 4 times. This is completely ridiculous. ...

Rating:
Summary: The worst book I have read to date
Review: Where to start? I hate this book. I would give it negative stars if I could.

This book is a horrible caricature of a true Regency novel. It's not witty, compelling, or sophisticated like the novels of Georgette Heyer. To compare this author to Ms. Heyer is a gross injustice. There is enough brow raising and chin lifting in this one novel to fill hundreds of Regency stories. The writing is atrocious, and the dialog is repetitive. Overuses of the word "inveigle," "subsumed," and a handful of other ten dollar words convice me that the author is in love with her thesaurus. There are sentences with no verbs. Other poorly constructed sentences such as "let her senses slide into a world of sensation," run rampant, ...

About 40 miserable pages into this novel, I decided to start over. Since I was deriving no enjoyment from it whatsoever, I wanted to really examine the writing. The result was gorge rising. I was lost in a world of the most purple of prose. Where to focus? Perhaps the overuse of the word "gaze" (I stopped counting once the word was used 100 times) or maybe the tendency of our heroine's chin to lift or tilt all the time (she should have a doctor look at that), but what really grabbed my attention was how many times the characters lifted their respective brows. I counted. The hero lifts his brow sardonically, haughtily, resignedly, and every other way you can imagine 55 times. The heroine raises hers only 22 times and the other characters hit the all time low of 5 times. In a given exchange, the hero can raise his brows up to 4 times. This is completely ridiculous. ...