Entwined

Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorite historical romances
Review: This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, set in Regency England and has all the wonderful elements of the best fairy tales: a brooding hero transformed by the love of a smart woman, an almost-as-smart villain, great supporting characters, and a happy ending that really leaves you satisfied.

Nathan is as good a hero as they come. He's pretty irresistible. Isobel is a very appealing heroine and definitely deserves the love of this man.

I just finished the sequel to this book ("Fallen") and can't decide which one I liked better. Maybe I'll just have to reread them both and try to decide then!

Rating:
Summary: When the hero needs love... and the heroine gives it
Review: When Isobel McLeod returns the money that her father has stolen from the Marquess of Oriel, she doesn't expect that Nathan Oriel will offer to forget about the thievery if she agrees to live with him and work as his secretary. Officially, what motivates him is Isobel's quick discovery his deepest secret: keeping her at his side is the only way for him to preserve this secret and escape from a killer who seems intent on eliminating all members of the secret group formed by Nathan and a few others during the Napoleonic wars. But when he convinces her to marry him to preserve her reputation even though she's not his mistress, it becomes clear that his teasing comment to her ("And what if I wish you to love me?") holds some truth.

Even after they're married, though, Nathan doesn't expect her to be more to him than a secretary who will help him move around the circles of society. Everything remains quite platonic between them until the feeling of life hanging onto a thread that can be cut any moment pushes them to acknowledge an attraction that has developed through the first few weeks of their marriage.

The book is a demonstration of Emma Jensen's skill for witty and funny dialogue. This aspect remains the most interesting of Entwined. Indeed, the first encounter between Isobel and Nathan, although set in a dramatic atmosphere, is full of humorous lines. The continual teasing banter between the two heroes reinforces the feeling that they're getting closer and will share more than simple friendship after a while.

The poetic leitmotivs that follow Nathan and Isobel throughout the story, such as Isobel's "ta grath agam ort", which Nathan (and the reader) think is a curse in Scots Gaelic (a language Isobel uses specifically for cursing purposes) or the symbolism of entwined roses play a great part in the beauty of Entwined.

My main regret with this book was the outcome, which seemed way too rushed to me. There were too many revelations piling up on top of one another in only just one scene. I wish Ms Jensen had given her characters (and her readers) more time to digest them. And so the end, somehow, didn't impress me as much as the rest of the novel.

Rating:
Summary: Oh what a wonderful book!!
Review: Yet again, I find that the summary posted above doesn't really represent the book adequately. This put me off buying this book for some time, and yet when I started to read it I was unable to put it down.

Emma Jensen is a very talented writer, and her knowledge not just of the Regency period in England, but of Scottish and Irish culture, history, language and mores, is very impressive. I loved Isobel, and Nathan was a delight as a hero. I love brooding, tortured men!

Isobel, despite being caught very much at a disadvantage the first time she encounters the Marquess of Oriel (she's returning the purse her father stole, with coins missing), doesn't allow him to intimidate her. She gives him as good as she gets, and is equally strong-willed when she meets him again the following day... and guesses the secret he's tried so hard to hide from everyone. And because of that, he insists that she come to work for him, and later persuades her to marry him. He claims that it's a business arrangement, but he's wanted her since he first grabbed hold of her in his study. She, on the other hand, quickly comes to be very fond of him - later falls in love with him - but has no idea of his feelings for her. (As I am Irish, and Scots Gaelic isn't too dissimilar to Irish, I was highly amused by Isobel telling Nathan 'ta grath agam ort' and his musings as to what particular curse this represented, since I knew what it meant all along!)

The backdrop to this story - apart from the comic secondary characters, Nathan's and Isobel's respective families - is a plot against the lives of Nathan and his former spy colleagues. This was a well-worked plot, only spoiled for me by the fact that I'd recently read a Regency by another author with a similar plot and the same ultimate 'bad guy', so I wasn't at all surprised when I discovered who was behind the murder attempts. But that wasn't Jensen's fault: had I read this first, she would have fooled me! (Oh, and there's a *very* nice twist at the end.)

The motif Jensen uses in the book, symbolism involving the entwined white and the red roses at Nathan's country home, works extremely well; I had a lump in my throat when Nathan left red and white roses awkwardly entwined on his pillow the night after they'd made love.

This is another wonderful Emma Jensen book. I still prefer His Grace Endures - an even greater angst-wallow - but love this one.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful love story with memorable characters
Review: Yet again, I find that the summary posted above doesn't really represent the book adequately. This put me off buying this book for some time, and yet when I started to read it I was unable to put it down.

Emma Jensen is a very talented writer, and her knowledge not just of the Regency period in England, but of Scottish and Irish culture, history, language and mores, is very impressive. I loved Isobel, and Nathan was a delight as a hero. I love brooding, tortured men!

Isobel, despite being caught very much at a disadvantage the first time she encounters the Marquess of Oriel (she's returning the purse her father stole, with coins missing), doesn't allow him to intimidate her. She gives him as good as she gets, and is equally strong-willed when she meets him again the following day... and guesses the secret he's tried so hard to hide from everyone. And because of that, he insists that she come to work for him, and later persuades her to marry him. He claims that it's a business arrangement, but he's wanted her since he first grabbed hold of her in his study. She, on the other hand, quickly comes to be very fond of him - later falls in love with him - but has no idea of his feelings for her. (As I am Irish, and Scots Gaelic isn't too dissimilar to Irish, I was highly amused by Isobel telling Nathan 'ta grath agam ort' and his musings as to what particular curse this represented, since I knew what it meant all along!)

The backdrop to this story - apart from the comic secondary characters, Nathan's and Isobel's respective families - is a plot against the lives of Nathan and his former spy colleagues. This was a well-worked plot, only spoiled for me by the fact that I'd recently read a Regency by another author with a similar plot and the same ultimate 'bad guy', so I wasn't at all surprised when I discovered who was behind the murder attempts. But that wasn't Jensen's fault: had I read this first, she would have fooled me! (Oh, and there's a *very* nice twist at the end.)

The motif Jensen uses in the book, symbolism involving the entwined white and the red roses at Nathan's country home, works extremely well; I had a lump in my throat when Nathan left red and white roses awkwardly entwined on his pillow the night after they'd made love.

This is another wonderful Emma Jensen book. I still prefer His Grace Endures - an even greater angst-wallow - but love this one.