![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Lessons After Dark
Author: Isabel Cooper
Genre: Paranormal historical romance (second in series, although you don't have to have read the first)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Olivia was a medium who discovered that her own powers were all too real. When she takes a job as a magic instructor at a very unusual boarding school, she's unpleasantly surprised to find that the school doctor knows a bit too much about her past. He's not subtle about his mistrust of her--so why is she so drawn to him?
Thingummies: A follow-up to No Proper Lady, this book features the staff of the school Joan and Simon founded. A nice blend of paranormal and Regency romances, it delivers on its promises--there's some rogue demons, hidden pasts, a magical siege, and sizzling love scenes.
The two protagonists are fairly likeable, and their banter generally works. Their reasons for staying apart, on the other hand, wear thin after awhile. Gareth looks down on Olivia--it's a combination of classicism (eww, she pretended to be a medium, how gauche) and conviction that she's a bad person for lying to desperate people. She starts off unapologetic--she'd been widowed and had no way of supporting herself, and she never did anyone any direct harm. Most of her audiences got exactly what they wanted. She eventually feels kinda bad that by convincing people she was real she may have led them on to darker things. He never explicitly admits he was wrong, she feels guilty but without any proof that she actually did something wrong--it's frustrating. I'd really expected there to be some kind of dark secret, since he's somewhat oblique in his memories. Maybe one of the friends he went to see the medium with before shipping out to a horrible tour in Egypt was adversely affected by her reading, or maybe he learned the perils of fortune-telling in some traumatic incident while deployed, or something that gives him a reason to be such a jerk and gives her a reason to feel bad for him and comfort him. But he doesn't actually have anything.
But the main plot works fairly well, the chemistry is undeniable, and the setting promises more such shenanigans with more pairs. (I'm going to guess one of the older boys and the new teacher they discuss bringing on.) This book was less uneven than the first one--hopefully, this trend will continue.
(Disclosure: I'm Internet-acquaintances with the author.)
Author: Isabel Cooper
Genre: Paranormal historical romance (second in series, although you don't have to have read the first)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Olivia was a medium who discovered that her own powers were all too real. When she takes a job as a magic instructor at a very unusual boarding school, she's unpleasantly surprised to find that the school doctor knows a bit too much about her past. He's not subtle about his mistrust of her--so why is she so drawn to him?
Thingummies: A follow-up to No Proper Lady, this book features the staff of the school Joan and Simon founded. A nice blend of paranormal and Regency romances, it delivers on its promises--there's some rogue demons, hidden pasts, a magical siege, and sizzling love scenes.
The two protagonists are fairly likeable, and their banter generally works. Their reasons for staying apart, on the other hand, wear thin after awhile. Gareth looks down on Olivia--it's a combination of classicism (eww, she pretended to be a medium, how gauche) and conviction that she's a bad person for lying to desperate people. She starts off unapologetic--she'd been widowed and had no way of supporting herself, and she never did anyone any direct harm. Most of her audiences got exactly what they wanted. She eventually feels kinda bad that by convincing people she was real she may have led them on to darker things. He never explicitly admits he was wrong, she feels guilty but without any proof that she actually did something wrong--it's frustrating. I'd really expected there to be some kind of dark secret, since he's somewhat oblique in his memories. Maybe one of the friends he went to see the medium with before shipping out to a horrible tour in Egypt was adversely affected by her reading, or maybe he learned the perils of fortune-telling in some traumatic incident while deployed, or something that gives him a reason to be such a jerk and gives her a reason to feel bad for him and comfort him. But he doesn't actually have anything.
But the main plot works fairly well, the chemistry is undeniable, and the setting promises more such shenanigans with more pairs. (I'm going to guess one of the older boys and the new teacher they discuss bringing on.) This book was less uneven than the first one--hopefully, this trend will continue.
(Disclosure: I'm Internet-acquaintances with the author.)
