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The Spinster & The Beast - A Regency Novella (2011)

by Caylen McQueen(Favorite Author)

3.53 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0013329103 (ISBN13: 2940013329102)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Caylen McQueen

review 1: I enjoyed this novella. You have an older woman of the Regency period escorting her nieces. An encounter with a beau of her own youth (a decade past) is demoralizing because he is now looking to court one of her nieces. Her anger and bitterness are written down in a letter and hidden under a rock. Later she realizes that perhaps she was a bit hasty and shouldn't have let the letter out into the world. Too late, it's been found and there is a reply to her instead.The hero is also heartbroke though he seems past his anger and bitterness and lives with his grandmother who is an invalid. He essentially took a musketball or shrapnel to his face and has given up all hope of even going out into society. He finds her letter and answers, seeing it, at first, as a light entertainmen... moret or a flirtation that can never really be or perhaps merely answering the anger and bitterness he sees in the letter and knows that the unknown writter can rise above it.I understood the motivations of everyone, was mildly entertained by the story and got my "Awwwh" HEA.
review 2: I love the beauty and the beast theme, and I can endlessly read books where authors come up with new variations on one of my favorite stories. I also love epistolary novels, and there're certainly enough great letters between the hero and heroine for this novella to qualify as one. Further, the book had a real fairy tale feel to it, so the fact that the H and h feel in love so quickly through their letters was believable.The book was very well written, the author is a talented story teller, and I love what she did with the beauty and the beast theme. So why am I only giving this book three stars instead of four? There were two instances that were, quite simply, gross and unnecessary. Since this is a very short novella, these two instances really stood out, and inserted a very jarring note into the charm and fluid ease of the story.First: the heroine has a very bad head cold. She's running an errand (I think she's going to pick up or deliver a letter to the tree where she and the hero leave their correspondence), but should really be home in bed. She runs into a former suitor, who had essentially dumped her. Of course, she wants to look her absolute best when she runs into him, but she's at her absolute worst. There are so many ways the author could have conveyed this. What the author did was have a large glob of snot fall from the heroine's nose (the author's exact words, not mine), and she wiped it off with her sleeve. And the author used the word snot (I have no idea if it was in use in England at that time), which was so inappropriate to a Regency story.Second: the hero lives with his elderly grandmother. At one point, while he and his grandmother are sitting and talking, she reaches into her ear, and takes out a large piece of wax and looks at it. When I read that, I just thought "yuck!" At least there was a really good reason in the plot for the heroine to be stuffed up and sniffling, although the "snot" dripping was not necessary. But the ear wax incident with the grandmother was totally gratuitous, and served no purpose whatsoever. Except to detract from an otherwise lovely story.I look forward to reading more books by this author, and hope she'll find less revolting ways to make a point. less

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