regency

This was a wonderful novel. Gabriel and Lucifer were my two favorite characters of the Bar Cynster. This novel starts right after Gabriels wedding. As usual, the male cynster is trying to outrun fate. Lucifer goes to visit an old friend and finds him dead. Not only that, but he ends up with a big bump on the head. I really enjoyed how he was stuck trying to figure out who hit him and who killed his friend. This book had some pretty funny little side stories in it. Phyllida didn't seem to be the most graceful of ladies. She was kinda like Flick in the Rogue's Proposal. She ran around in breeches and was head strong when it came to getting male protection. The love scenes in this book are hot. Lucifer has no shame and is quite obviously very comfortable with his body. He puts it to good use to please Phyllida. Stephanie Laurens knows how to capture a reader with her descriptiveness. She seems to have cornered the market on writing the perfect male. I haven't read one of her novels yet, where I had't wanted to be the female in it. None of her characters are weaklings and none of her stories leave with the incredible urge to slap some sense into one of the characters. As far as historical romance novels go, this one is a must have in your collection.

I just love reading books about families, especially when you know that there's another book awaiting you that has the same family in it! The Bar Cynster series is no exception, and Stephanie Laurens has created yet another great pair of lovers. Of COURSE, he has no intention of marrying, and of COURSE, she is headstrong and intelligent, and of COURSE they wind up in bed together before the wedding. It's a Cynster book, isn't it?? Nice attention to detail, fun plot, and of course, good little "naughty parts" to keep your attention ;-)

In All About Love, it's Rupert Cynster's turn to meet his fate, and he does so in the form of Phyllida Tallent, the daughter of the magistrate in the village whence Cynster has fled to escape his matchmaking family. They first meet when she almost kills him, which I suppose is one way of leaving a lasting impression.

There is a murder plot: the old friend whom Rupert - Lucifer, as we're supposed to call him - has come to visit has just been killed. And Lucifer knows that Phyllida knows something about the murder, just as he later discovers that her life is in danger - which gives him a very good reason to insist on protecting her. And, being a Cynster, he does a lot more than just protect her. Which begins to sound somewhat familiar...

Here's the formula for any Cynster book: Alpha-male hero, dead set against marriage, does his best to escape the plotters among the rest of his family. And then, when he least expects it, he runs into an unusual woman, very different from the run-of-the-mill female in that she's independent and confident, and immediately he falls in love and wants to marry her. Said female, on the other hand, does not want to marry him - for various, usually not very convincing reasons. Cynster male then exerts multiple powers of persuasion, some not exactly fair, but the one thing he refuses to do is to *tell* her exactly why he wants to marry her. So if she's holding out for a declaration of love, she's unlikely to get one, and this is what carries the story, which could really have been over within 150 pages, on to close to 400 pages.

Oh, and there's always some sort of mystery/murder/crime plot, which generally gets far too much time and attention devoted to it, and which is usually pretty much paper-thin.

But clearly the formula works, since Laurens seems to be selling millions of the books in this series. This one's okay, although the murder plot dominates rather too much and at least some of the links were far too obvious from the beginning. If I'd read it as a stand-alone novel, since I did quite like Phyllida and Lucifer I'd probably have given it a three or four; however, it really feels as if I'm just reading the same book over and over again.

Chillingworth's up next in the series; with any luck, as he's not actually a Cynster, Laurens might not follow the formula for once.