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Rating: 
Summary: Resident Genius of Romance delivers again!
Review: Anne Stuart delights in using her magical powers. A lady wizard, she takes a setting, characters and a plot, and goes biffity boffity boop! and gives us amazing stories that mesmerizes us, enthralls us. But she is not content to do the Hat Trick time after time, she loves to pick out a hero - an anti-hero - and show us she can make us love someone we'd ordinarily shun. She's pushed us into dancing in the fire with an assassin, a mercenary, convicted murderers, a mad wizard, a conjurer of Black Arts who converses with a dead priest, men who spent time in jail, a cult leader, a man supposedly dead, and countless unrepentant rogues. This time she decided to make us adore a man who is both a murderer and crazy. And as usual, she achieves the aim she set out to do. We mere mortals can just sit back enjoy the fireworks and smile!Crazy like a Fox is another dazzling display of Stuart's genius. I'd like to know what she eats, because no writer on the market today writes with the same solid consistency for decades, and yet each time the book is so special, so original. For this one, Stuart goes south to Louisiana. It's a Southern Gothic that revels in the Faulkneresque peculiarities of post Antebellum South. Somehow, the years are not so distant in the South, traditions are strong, family, even extended family means so much. But Margaret Jaffrey, a woman raised above the Mason-Dixon Line - is unprepared for the brooding mansion and the oddball family ruled with a strong fist by her grandmother by marriage. However, out of a job and down to her last dollar, she has no choice but to accept the offer from her in-laws to take in her 9-year-old daughter and her. Gertrude, who prefers to be called grand-mere, holds court in the Deveraux-Jeffery Clan. There is Uncle Remy, the lovable lush; Aunt Eustacia, the fading ghost of a Southern Belle; her daughter Lisette, the spiteful, sluttish daughter coming out of her second marriage and Wendell, the ne'er-do-well attorney - and one mustn't forget Gertrude's grandson, Peter, locked in the attic in great Gothic tradition. Peter's wife was killed two years ago. Someone strangled her and tried to burn down the building she was in to cover the crime. Peter was arrested, convicted for the murder while protesting his innocence; later the conviction was overturned with a verdict of not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity. He was supposed to be confined to a mental insinuation, but in old Southern Tradition ala Boo Radley, the family arranged that Peter spends his days confined to the attic. Margaret is unused to this close family togetherness, unused to the while they are being ever so genteel, they're sharpening knives to stab each other in the back. While she plots for a way to escape this bizarre lifestyle, her daughter quickly comes to love her great-grandmother, great-uncle Remy and especially mad Peter in the attic. At first she is stunned by the family's casual acceptance of Peter's "condition", the scurrying to put out cigarettes or hide lighters from Peter when he enters a room, or the frantic dive to turn off music on a radio fearful of setting him off in another "spell". However, despite assurances from everyone that Peter is insane - well, he only killed his wife everyone else is safe are they not? - Margaret falls under the spell of the troubled man and soon comes to suspect Peter is not as he pretends. Toss in a night of romance on Mardi Gras, Stuart with her sly humor, once gain, serves up something as filling as a Poor Boy Sandwich and as tempting as fresh Beignets on a sleepy New Orleans morn. It's just does not get any better than this!
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Summary: Crazy in love, Big Easy style!
Review: Anne Stuart is amazing! She can take characters and make you love them so much that you never want the story to end. This is one of those stories. And this book is filled with characters who you wish you never had to say goodbye to. Peter is crazy (in love), smart, sexy and witty. Margaret is attracted to Peter despite his reputation for being a 'lady killer'. A fierce tigress trying to keep her wits about her, her daughter safe and herself sane in a house full of nutty relatives, she is a character you can wholeheartedly root for. The Mardi Gras scenes are enough to make you wish you were there. This remains my favorite of Anne Stuart's many wonderful stories, for the humor, the mystery and most especially for the romance between Peter and his Marguerite! A definite keeper!
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Summary: A Murder, Mystery, Mardi Gras and a Masquerade.
Review: Peter Jaffrey is a hunk. But, he's also a killer; isn't he? Margaret is destitute, and worried about her daughter; before, she is even willing to meet her dead husband's family. One day in the home of this family, and you understand that Margaret might be better off worried about destitution! Add to the mystery, a masquerade, Mardi Gras, a family mansion, weird relatives; you really have a marvelous old-time gothic.
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Summary: A Modern-Day Gothic -- and a Good One
Review: This books has it all. Southern atmosphere, a dysfunctional family, lots of secrets... Oh, yeah, and a hero suspected of being an insane killer. Now is that Gothic or what? One thing that makes this stand apart from many of the old Gothics is that the heroine is strong. She has to be to put up with this family. Also, there are sensual love scenes. My only regret was that this wasn't one of Anne Stuart's longer romances. The mystery would have been even stronger then. I gave this a B+ review at All About Romance.
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Summary: A true modern gothic by the very best in romance authors
Review: This is a very unusual read. It's like taking a trip to the " big easy" with a very entertaining family! Peter, (the crazy one) is under house arrest, when Margaret comes to stay. She, and her daughter might be the cure that Peter needs. The mystery, sexual tension, and the fun of Mardi Gras add to the spice of this great book. It truly is a keeper!
Rating:
Summary: A true modern gothic by the very best in romance authors
Review: This is a very unusual read. It's like taking a trip to the " big easy" with a very entertaining family! Peter, (the crazy one) is under house arrest, when Margaret comes to stay. She, and her daughter might be the cure that Peter needs. The mystery, sexual tension, and the fun of Mardi Gras add to the spice of this great book. It truly is a keeper!
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Summary: Suspend disbelief!
Review: Who wouldn't love Peter Jaffrey, sexy, handsome, and sensitive and "crazy" about Margaret Jaffrey. Peter, under house arrest for a murder he didn't commit, is so vulnerable you can't help but love him. Margaret, battered widow, homeless, single mom sees the potential in her late husbands sweet but sad cousin. My heart was with Margaret every step of the way, particularly at the voodoo madam's grave sight where, with all her life is lacking, she uses her one wish to ask for Peter's sanity. Peter in turn risks all, even his life, to be with the women he loves. The sexual tension between these two is only the beginning. This is not your run of the mill romance. With convoluted plot and serious obstacles to overcome, you can't help but pray these two make it. Anne Stuart is a master who knows how to create empathy with her hero's and heroines (in spite of their dark secrets).
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