Reading While Black

Generally, I am a Liz Carlyle fan. She has one of the most distinct, delicious voices in historical romance and has made a mark in the Regency Historical field for imbuing the sort of darkness into the Regency one tends to see in the Victorian era. Granted, outside of her great “historical” voice, her books seem anachronistic (come now, what are the odds of a female child psychiatrist existing in Regency England?), but as with Elizabeth Hoyt, the ability to sweep me away with the story can trump historical accuracy.

Partially through NLTaL, I’m experiencing the same reaction that caused me to skip over Carlyle’s Sins,Lies & Secrets trilogy: deja vu. I’ve seen this before in a novel by Liz Carlyle: the dark and dangerous hero, the often sexually-liberated heroine, a suspense plot mostly set in be-fogged Regency London (though 1828 is stretching that setting quite a bit), a dissipated sibling, and a cast of zany family members, associates and friends. Perhaps I’ve grown hard to please in my admittedly short tenure of reading romances, but I’m left wanting thus far. Oh, Carlyle still delivers the searing sexual tension, the cutting wit,the well-plotted suspense sub-plot; however, I wonder if she would be hard-pressed to bring something “new” to the table.

Despite the sense of deja vu, Never Lie to A Lady is an enjoyable and refreshing to read when looking at the ratio of bland, interchangeable historical romances to unique, or at least unique-sounding, historicals that have been released within the past year…