Home :: Books :: Romance  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance

Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Lord Yates and the Yankee (Zebra Regency Romance)

Lord Yates and the Yankee (Zebra Regency Romance)

List Price: $4.99
Your Price: $4.99
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Both pleasing and entertaining
Review: I always enjoy Joy Reed's regencies and this was no exception. The premise initially worried me - the self-righteous American berating the allegedly dissolute, useless aristocrat. However, the heroine, Constance Locke, may have indeed expressed herself in this way at first, but she redeemed herself soon after. She realised that there could be other opinions than her own. Lord Yates was very much the likable, seemingly foolish unheroic nobleman. He is caught at the beginning of this tale, at the crossroads, for him, of deeper thoughts on life. He is discovering the aimlessness of his existance and finding his usual pleasures empty. The influence of the family tomb on his state of mind, is particularly well done and is a recurrent motif.
Both of these characters are well drawn and likable from the first. They are both willing and ready to change and not stupidly stubborn in their behaviour.
Read and enjoy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Flawed
Review: In my opinion it was an extremely boring romance. I couldn't finish it.


Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Something to be desired...
Review: Lord Vincent Yates is a man without a purpose. He is bored with life, and feels that no one would miss him if he was dead. To his friends, he is known as a prankster whose sole purpose in life is to seek pleasure.

Lord Yates is surprised when he meets Miss Constance Locke, because she is not what he expected from an American girl. She is wholly opposed to the English aristocracy, and is always willing to share her negative opinions with Lord Yates. She is smart, sensible, and... engaged.

Though some parts of the novel were quite enjoyable, it left me feeling, for the most part, dissatisfied. I felt extreme sympathy for the hero of the novel, and wasn't quite sure why he was chasing after Constance the entire time. And I couldn't quite fall in love with a hero whose opinions could be almost entirely changed to suit the fancy of an opinionated American girl. Constance was a frustrating character. Sometimes, I wanted to wring her neck and give Lord Yates a hug.

Overall: 2 1/2 stars

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Something to be desired...
Review: Lord Vincent Yates is a man without a purpose. He is bored with life, and feels that no one would miss him if he was dead. To his friends, he is known as a prankster whose sole purpose in life is to seek pleasure.

Lord Yates is surprised when he meets Miss Constance Locke, because she is not what he expected from an American girl. She is wholly opposed to the English aristocracy, and is always willing to share her negative opinions with Lord Yates. She is smart, sensible, and... engaged.

Though some parts of the novel were quite enjoyable, it left me feeling, for the most part, dissatisfied. I felt extreme sympathy for the hero of the novel, and wasn't quite sure why he was chasing after Constance the entire time. And I couldn't quite fall in love with a hero whose opinions could be almost entirely changed to suit the fancy of an opinionated American girl. Constance was a frustrating character. Sometimes, I wanted to wring her neck and give Lord Yates a hug.

Overall: 2 1/2 stars

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It Had The Possibilities To Be Good
Review: The heroine Constance is a strong young woman from America who is in town with her literary father while he visits with his publishers. Lord Yates is, from what I have read in other books, an aristocrat without any purpose. His intelligence is in question, he doesn't oversee his estate as he has an excellent manager already, he wasn't in the military, doesn't attend the House of Lords like he should, does not appear to have any outside financial interests and the only comments apply to the fact that he is known to do really idiotic things for bets.

Constance as the heroine is not bad, I actually like her. But Lord Yates is the hero's friend we see in other books that plays the buffoon and sounds as if he is lucky to be able to do two things at once without getting confused. The book does gradually show through their relationship that he is not as stupid as he and others may think and she does seem to bring him into awareness of his surroundings. The thing I cannot get past is the longwinded writing. I like banter back and forth between characters and when that occurs I enjoyed this book but this is the first book I have ever read that basically had very little dialogue in comparison to the size of the book. You spend a great deal of time reading what the characters are thinking. This is the first book I have read by Joy Reed and it makes me very wary about reading any more. But I know everyone can have at least one bad book so maybe I will read another one when the bad taste of this one is gone.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It Had The Possibilities To Be Good
Review: The heroine Constance is a strong young woman from America who is in town with her literary father while he visits with his publishers. Lord Yates is, from what I have read in other books, an aristocrat without any purpose. His intelligence is in question, he doesn't oversee his estate as he has an excellent manager already, he wasn't in the military, doesn't attend the House of Lords like he should, does not appear to have any outside financial interests and the only comments apply to the fact that he is known to do really idiotic things for bets.

Constance as the heroine is not bad, I actually like her. But Lord Yates is the hero's friend we see in other books that plays the buffoon and sounds as if he is lucky to be able to do two things at once without getting confused. The book does gradually show through their relationship that he is not as stupid as he and others may think and she does seem to bring him into awareness of his surroundings. The thing I cannot get past is the longwinded writing. I like banter back and forth between characters and when that occurs I enjoyed this book but this is the first book I have ever read that basically had very little dialogue in comparison to the size of the book. You spend a great deal of time reading what the characters are thinking. This is the first book I have read by Joy Reed and it makes me very wary about reading any more. But I know everyone can have at least one bad book so maybe I will read another one when the bad taste of this one is gone.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: one of Joy Reed's better novels
Review: Vincent, Lord Yates, has spent most of his life enjoying the social whirl, playing ridiculous pranks, and in general being a jolly fellow who can always be counted on for a laugh. But at the (perhaps belated) age of 35, he has started to consider society a bore, he begins to considers his mortality, and wonders if he is wasting his life.

Soon after he begins having these thoughts, he meets the daughter of a visiting American author at one of his sister's literary parties, which he had impulsively promised to attend. Being a friendly fellow, he introduces himself to Miss Constance Locke, and is surprised when she gives him an icy reception, telling him she believes that the British system of aristocracy is tyrannical. Vincent is not stupid, despite his clowning ways and habit of speaking in sporting man's cant. He responds to Constance's opinions with good humor and common sense, and she sees that there is more to him than the handsome dandy she first took him for.

Constance and Vincent have considerable chemistry together, despite their surface differences. Constance is used to being considered a sensible, eccentric woman, and enjoys Vincent's attention, while believing he can't possibly be interested in her as more than a friend. Vincent is a man who is perhaps accustomed to people taking him at face-value, which has contributed to his lack of confidence in his own abilities, and his lack of ambition. This probably accounts for his initial attraction to Constance, as she sees the intelligent man beneath his social exterior, and challenges him to defend his opinions. Constance is also attracted to Vincent, but believes he can't possibly be interested in her. She is astounded, delighted and dismayed to find that Vincent does indeed seem to think of her in a romantic light, because she has a fiance back in Boston. Constance reminds herself frequently that she made a promise, and that anyway, she wouldn't be a fit wife for a British earl. Vincent, devastated by her engagement to another man, figures he will at least spend as much time with her as he can while she remains in England. Maybe a miracle will happen, and she will love him back, even though he doesn't think he is worth Constance's love.

Once I got past Vincent's frequent "By Jove"s and sentence-concluding "what?"s (by regarding them as the Regency equivalent of sprinkling one's conversation with "like" and "dude"), I really enjoyed this book. Constance's insistence upon honoring her promise to her fiance back home went a little farther than necessary, if you ask me, but it all ended well. And the scene where Vincent and Constance first openly confess their love for one another was beautifully written. Both main characters are quite likable, and seemed to blossom when they were together, having very witty conversations. What more can one ask for in a romance novel? (There are no graphic sex scenes in this book--just some kissing.)


<< 1 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates