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Title: No Proper Lady
Author: Isabel Cooper
Genre: Fantasy Regency Romance
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Terminator meets My Fair Lady. Demons have taken over a post-apocalyptic future, so they send an agent back in time to kill the man responsible. But as she tries to learn enough manners to blend in, she finds herself falling for the villain's best friend.
Thoughts: Fish-out-of-water time travel stories are incredibly overdone, but I still like them anyway. Joan was prepped for her mission, so she's not completely ignorant, but her future is so shattered that they didn't have much good information to give her. So her clothes are horrifying and her manners not much better. But because she's a soldier with a mission and enough sense not to let her pride get in the way, her no-nonsense approach to learning skills she thinks are silly is refreshing.
Also refreshing is the fact that the main characters have entirely sensible reasons for wanting to leap into bed together and still refusing to do so for most of the novel. Joan thinks Simon is needlessly prissy about sex, but she also thinks it's unprofessional to go to bed with a colleague. Simon realizes that Joan has something of a death wish, but very much wants her to survive her mission and knows that if she's going to build a life in this time when she's through, she'll need her reputation intact. Given that prolonging the will-they-won't-they is the factor that is frequently most silly in romances, the entire set up is delightfully straightforward and sensible.
I do have a few quibbles. I don't demand daintiness, but I think Simon's physical reactions to Joan are described too graphically too early--it's a bit of a shock with no lead-up. There's a bit of handwaving involved in explaining what happened to the demon guarding the book Joan is trying to destroy. And I still don't understand why Joan herself was chosen to be the person sent back. She thinks of herself as a simple soldier, and she's certainly not a mage. Why not send back a practicing magician? If the plan all along was seduction and she's the prettiest they've got left, why not state that more clearly?
All in all, a charming book with a sweet romance and some nasty demons to add some spice.
Author: Isabel Cooper
Genre: Fantasy Regency Romance
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Terminator meets My Fair Lady. Demons have taken over a post-apocalyptic future, so they send an agent back in time to kill the man responsible. But as she tries to learn enough manners to blend in, she finds herself falling for the villain's best friend.
Thoughts: Fish-out-of-water time travel stories are incredibly overdone, but I still like them anyway. Joan was prepped for her mission, so she's not completely ignorant, but her future is so shattered that they didn't have much good information to give her. So her clothes are horrifying and her manners not much better. But because she's a soldier with a mission and enough sense not to let her pride get in the way, her no-nonsense approach to learning skills she thinks are silly is refreshing.
Also refreshing is the fact that the main characters have entirely sensible reasons for wanting to leap into bed together and still refusing to do so for most of the novel. Joan thinks Simon is needlessly prissy about sex, but she also thinks it's unprofessional to go to bed with a colleague. Simon realizes that Joan has something of a death wish, but very much wants her to survive her mission and knows that if she's going to build a life in this time when she's through, she'll need her reputation intact. Given that prolonging the will-they-won't-they is the factor that is frequently most silly in romances, the entire set up is delightfully straightforward and sensible.
I do have a few quibbles. I don't demand daintiness, but I think Simon's physical reactions to Joan are described too graphically too early--it's a bit of a shock with no lead-up. There's a bit of handwaving involved in explaining what happened to the demon guarding the book Joan is trying to destroy. And I still don't understand why Joan herself was chosen to be the person sent back. She thinks of herself as a simple soldier, and she's certainly not a mage. Why not send back a practicing magician? If the plan all along was seduction and she's the prettiest they've got left, why not state that more clearly?
All in all, a charming book with a sweet romance and some nasty demons to add some spice.
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Date: 2012-01-13 05:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 06:09 pm (UTC)From: