Rate this book

A Lily Among Thorns (2011)

by Rose Lerner(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

review 1: A Woman Can Succeed in a Man's WorldJust, in Regency England, it was a very unusual situation, and required a very specific type of woman, and a little bit of coincidence. For the woman who would become known as "Thorn" that happened because she had the misfortune to fall in lust with a stablehand, and get caught. Subsequently, she fled to London, and became a prostitute. She had a family predisposition for being able to separate herself from her life (witness that her father apparently never thought again about her...until it suited his purposes.)The first bit of luck she had was when friends bring Solomon to her...but he is not only drunk: he is also a moral, ethical man. Instead of using her and disappearing, he gives her his entire quarter's allowance, which allow... mores her to purchase her freedom, and then to learn to exploit men. Eventually, she is running a relatively high-end eating establishment, with a male partner. She is also a person with a reputation of being able to find things that have been stolen, and for being someone you mustn't cross, and other things - she is one tough cookie. And so it is that Solomon comes to her for help (without knowing who she is). Of course, since he is no idiot, he eventually realizes who she is, jusT as she immediately recognizes him - as "the 125 pounds". The rest of the book revolves around French spies in England, English spies who were in France but are now in England, French spies who move between the two, and of course, the blossoming love between the two main characters. (With a subplot of the love affair between one male French spy and a man he did not know was an English spy, who happens to be Solomon's identical twin!)The final week of events in the book swirls wildly and erratically. At times it seemed it could rapidly fall into being a farce, while at other times, it was more of a tragedy.All in all, a good escape.
review 2: Okay guys you all know this story. There's a man with pain in his past and a dangerous reputation. He's got walls round his emotions a mile thick and it's going to take a very special person to break through them. Enter our lady, stubborn and compassionate and exactly the kind of sweetheart who can slip in sideways through the cracks. Lots of push-pull, emotional progress hard won and then finally FINALLY a happy ending.Now let's take all that and enjoy some genderswap!A Lily Among Thorns is about Serena, former prostitute, now inn proprieter who is hard and prickly because you need to be if you're a woman trying to carve out power in a world determined to deprive you of it. She knows the Christian name of every criminal in London and they're all well acquainted with what happens if you cross the Thorn.Enter Solomon, chemist and tailor. Way back in the day Solomon's friends took him to a brothel to enjoy the company of a lady of experience on his twenty-first birthday. Solomon, who is burdened with an overactive conscience, panicked, gave her 125 pounds, and vamanosed. Five years later he's come to Serena to ask her to use her contacts to find a pair of earrings his sister needs to get married.Naturally you all see where this is going right? :D This book reminded me a lot of Courtney Milan's Unclaimed, with it's emphasis on the heroine's agency and acknowledging the hero's privilege and being really really good on gender and class. Also race and sexuality! (Not that Unclaimed was necessarily bad on those last two but A Lily Among Thorns has black characters and queer characters where Unclaimed had neither so. Hard to judge something in absentia!)On a related note A Lily Among Thorns tops it all off with a bonus secondary romance between starcrossed queer spies. Two amazing rare kinds of romances for the price of one? Come buy my friends, please come buy. 4.5 stars less

Download links for: A Lily Among Thorns

Advertising