Love and Other Perils

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Love and Other Perils is a light-hearted pair of romances that will especially appeal to cat lovers. These novellas also make a good introduction to the work of the authors, if you’re not already familiar with them.


Lieutenant Mayhew’s Catastrophes by Emily Larkin

Grade: B-

Sensuality Rating: Warm

Miss Wilhelmina (Willie) Culpepper is on a stagecoach, making a long journey to Southampton to meet an employer. Lieutenant Mayhew boards the same stagecoach carrying a basket with two kittens inside, a gift for his sister’s children. When he opens the basket to give a curious child a peek, Willie is charmed, and he later acts as a buffer between her and a drunken fellow traveler.

They talk along the way and discover they have quite a lot in common, since she’s the daughter of a soldier and enjoyed the adventure of that life. But when they stop to stretch their legs and the kittens escape, they’re in for an adventure of a different kind when the stagecoach leaves without them. So Willie and Lieutenant Mayhew follow, kittens in hand. And as they deal with obstacles such as muddy fields and bad weather, they find they like each other more and more.

If you like road trip romances set in the Regency era, you’ll probably enjoy this. The setting and atmosphere ring very true, and so do the characters. At one point, the lieutenant asks Willie if he can write to her, and it’s clear that this is quite an intimate step in their relationship. The only problem is the complete lack of problems. Willie and the lieutenant (I keep calling him that because his name is William) get along perfectly. Many novellas can seem rushed, but because this one featured a couple who will never disagree about anything, it actually felt longer than it should be. There’s enough to like about it, but I have to qualify the recommendation.


Kisses and Catnip by Grace Burrowes

Grade: A

Sensuality Rating: Warm

There are mice in the library. Antonia Mainwaring, the librarian, hasn’t seen any, but Max Haddonfield points out droppings and offers a way to combat the uninvited visitors – a cat called Lucifer. Antonia accepts, and soon she’s fascinated by the unusual Mr. Haddonfield, who finds good homes for cats, smells like freshly baked bread, and is as intelligent as he is kind.

I won’t mention any more of the plot, because that would ruin the fun of discovery, but it was surprisingly twisty for a novella. A bit too much so, actually. I would have preferred a tad less external complexity so Max and Antonia’s relationship could have been developed even more, because they’re great characters. A bluestocking no longer as young as she used to be, Antonia is being courted by a man who’s wrong for her, while Max (who’s conducting experiments with yeast, hence his delicious scent) also receives a proposal regarding a lady in difficult straits.

I liked these two together, and I especially appreciated their maturity – they were well aware, for instance, of the link between sex and conception, and took that into consideration. Just as refreshing was Dagger, a street urchin who’s a helper in Max’s experiments and co-caretaker for the cats. He’s his own person rather than a plot device to bring the hero and heroine together (he’s got way more things to do). He has habits learned from both his world and Max’s, which don’t mesh well, and he’s just plain realistic for a boy his age. That’s why he gets almost a  paragraph of my going on about how well he’s written.


Worth checking out if you’re looking for good historical romances, and definitely worth it for the Grace Burrowes novella, Love and Other Perils is a recommended read. Even if you don’t like cats.

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Reviewed by Marian Perera

Grade: B+

Book Type: Historical Romance

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date: 16/11/19

Publication Date: 10/2019

Review Tags: Anthology

Recent Comments …

  1. excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.

I'm Marian, originally from Sri Lanka but grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in Georgia and Texas, ended up in Toronto. When I'm not at my job as a medical laboratory technologist, I read, write, do calligraphy, and grow vegetables in the back yard.

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Annelie
Annelie
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11/17/2019 12:59 pm

The Larkin novella was IMO a bit over the top, but still likeable.
For me the Burrowes story was one of the best novellas I’ve read in a long time. A Beta hero in the best way and a heroine searching for more in her life than just what was exspected from her without beeing too feminist in a modern way.

Ani
Ani
Guest
11/17/2019 10:17 am

This cover looks like it could be one of the covers they were putting on LM Montgomery’s books back in the eighties or nineties.

Marian Perera
Marian Perera
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Reply to  Ani
11/17/2019 11:08 am

That’s one reason I wanted to read it. A historical romance where the hero’s shirt wasn’t unbuttoned to his navel and the heroine’s dress wasn’t open at the back seemed an interesting change.

Susan/DC
Susan/DC
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Reply to  Marian Perera
11/17/2019 10:07 pm

Agree about liking the cover. There are times I’m tempted to buy a historical simply because the people on the cover are realistically clothed and the hero isn’t a duke. I want publishers to know that there is a market for these books too.

Kay
Kay
Guest
11/16/2019 9:25 am

Grace Burrowes is one of my favorite authors and I enjoyed her story in this duet. Thanks for your review.

Marian Perera
Marian Perera
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Reply to  Kay
11/17/2019 9:39 am

You’re welcome! Grace Burrowes is a new author to me, so I look forward to discovering all her other books.