In for a Penny Book

So New Adult and Regency Romance had a baby

And it was awesome!



Not everyone liked this baby. More to come...stay tuned, please.

Setting / Time / Genre: Regency stuff, around and about London and the English countryside

Length: 322 pages

Series: Nope

Sexy times: A few. Nice description of fellatio so if you have a thing against it, be warned.

Plan on reading more by the author: Hell to the yeas, homeskillet

Synopsis: Hero is left destitute by an idiot father, makes a play for heroine who is a mushroom or a Cit which basically means new money, people, new money. Hero is old money. Oh dear. They come to an agreement and decide they will rub along swimmingly. What ensues is a story of two people growing up together dealing with one sh!t show after another.

Cue the evil vicar named something like Snively, no less. Automatically, the Snidely Whiplash dude makes an entrance on my mental stage.



-Cue the villain suffering from PTSD
-Cue the cranky mother in law who is dealing with her own guilt issues for marrying an idiot man and projecting them on to our heroine so that she too may suffer.
-Cue the bffs left behind in a redemption move so the rake hero (more about him in a minute) will no longer be rakish.
-Cue this sister who's a little short sighted.
-Cue the evil tenant taking advantage of the system.
-Cue the slightly seditious and downtrodden tenants.
-Cue the heroine's former best friend and sender of mean art. Check out Hogarth's art
-Cue this mistress.

There's a lot of sh!t going on here. You get that, right?

Heroine: Penny/ Penelope, the pragmatic one. I adore this woman. She's young, oh so very young, yet so practical. Unfortunately, she subverts her feelings and her needs until the point where she nearly breaks and bails on our dearest of little boy heroes. I shall not lie, there are moments where I mentally yell at her to "get off that damned pyre, Joan. We don't need another martyr here!" She doesn't listen to me.



Hero: Nev. Seriously. The man is darling. He's a boob man...constantly jerking his eyes away from his wife's bosom. You go boy. He's the elite. He's the upper crust. He's a fiasco. He's awkward. He doesn't have a clue. And he's sweet and good natured and has the best of intentions. And I adore him.

Why it did or didn't work for me: As one of the dissenting voices in a group read with Becca, Noura, Christina, Zoe and the two Andreas, I loved this book. Simply adored it. We get the bit of angst of new adult: we watch young people growing up together and forging a life together. We see two people figuring out who they are. (That's the New Adult reference, folks. The Regency reference should be self explanatory. If it's not, IM me, I can help with that =).

Ok, moving on, because I can go on and on: The books is great. Yes, there is a bit too much drama and that is why it is a four star for me. But I really loved the two characters. I loved a glance to into how I imagine the whole Cit influx went down. It all feels so real. And I am totally ok that we spent time on all of the other stuff going down because everything felt real and not like pretend Romancelandia.

I'm out.