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Must say, I’m quite surprised by this new installment of Lords of Chance series by Wendy LaCapra. No, it wasn’t Wendy's beautiful storytelling that always hooks me right into the story. I already knew of it. It’s because on one hand, Markham wasn’t the hero I was expecting to see getting his book so early. On the other, I didn’t think he had quite the depth of character he’d shown throughout Heart’s Desire.

Lords of Chance is a Regency set series with 3 peers of the realm, who are also old friends, as the center of the storyline. They go by sobriquet taken from the game of card—Spades, Clubs and Diamonds. The latest, a new addition to that small group came in the form of Lord Markham; Hearts to complete the circle. He’s also the youngest in the group at 24 and often jokingly called as the ‘pup’. But unknowing to him, he was being groomed by our Spades for an ultimate purpose. No, nothing nefarious but that didn’t mean it was any less important to Spades’ own existence.

In his story, in book 1 Scandal in Spades, we found Giles Langley the Marquess of Bromton, in a dilemma. A big one TBH. He had a very serious family issue that he needed to take care of. It involved the survival of the Bromley bloodline and Giles was ‘trained’ to become someone who’d do anything in his power to keep that bloodline flowing to the next generation. But there was a dark twist in his story which led him to find a proper (or improper, didn’t matter) solution to his aforementioned dilemma. And that’s how Markham came into the picture. There was a card game, naturally. An already set-up game ‘won’ by him which led Giles in search of a bride. Help came in the form of Markham’s elder sister Katherine, the scandalous spinster who made the Regency ‘headlines’ a few times in her life; not because she wanted to make any headline, but because she seemed to had a singularly bad luck where Beaus and fiancés were concerned. But her meeting to Giles was the thing of magic. Full of spark and chemistry that both felt and were unable to deny. Both were scared to fall but fall they did despite everything. I love LOVED that book and highly recommend that you read it first.

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I’ve been eagerly waiting for the sequel to Emily Larkin’s Baleful Godmother series for quite a few months now. Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, is the first in the Garland Cousins series and I’m happy to say it was a delightful read mostly because I adored our H and the h, Oliver and Primrose. Of course, I do love Emily’s writing style, so all in all, this was a great initiation to a new series!

Though Primrose and the Dreadful Duke can be read as a standalone, I’d suggest you read the Baleful Godmother series and its prequels containing 4 books, titled the Fey Quartet. The prequels are set in the ancient times when magic seemed real and Fae roamed the earth. You get to know why a family of females were gifted with special powers by a cold and scary-looking Fae named Baletongue. It began with the Miller Family; Widow Miller and her 3 daughters Hazel, Ivy and Larkspur. Then the female descendants of their families were gifted by Baletongue with a special power, what you can also call a ‘super power’ of their choice. The wish would be granted when they turn from somewhere between 21 and 25 depending on which sister they descended from. Girls born from a male descendant won’t inherit it and if a female who was the last of a line inheriting special power either lived her life as a spinster, or passed away without having a daughter, that line would die with her.

The Baleful Godmother series is Regency set and contains 5 books and a novella, each telling the story of a girl descended from the Millers one way or the other. Some of them were cousins; others didn’t even know they had relatives with special powers until circumstances brought them together! It was a super fun series, and apart from book 1, I enjoyed them all. The novella is M/M, with 2 male characters appearing in the installment right before it. It doesn’t really connect to the theme of the series directly but the state of affairs in both books went simultaneously, so it’s connected that way. The novella was written in a way that if M/M isn’t your cup of tea you can skip it. I read and loved it myself. :)

Book 1, Unmasking Miss Appleby is of Charlotte’s and book 2, Resisting Miss Merryweather is of Merry’s. They’re cousins. Book 3, Trusting Miss Trentham is about Letitia Trentham who turns out to be Charlotte and Merry’s distant relative. Book 3.5 is the M/M novella, between one of Letitia’s cousins and his best friend. Book 4, Ruining Miss Wrotham and book 5, Discovering Miss Darlymple aren’t directly connected to the first installments but by the theme, though I think Charlotte and Merry do make appearances in book 4. I’m sure all those ladies are relatives one way or the other, whether they know each-other or not.

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One Step Enough is Carla Kelly’s latest release, and a sequel to her wonderful novel, My Loving Vigil Keeping. Book 1 was based on the 1900s Scofield mining disaster, but it also had a h and a H, whose lives entwined with the chaos of it all. Carla Kelly gave such vivid narratives of everything about a mining town, the lives of its inhabitants and how a tragedy can shatter hundreds of lives, that for me who had no idea about this disaster, it was an experience TBH!

My Loving Vigil Keeping was released in 2012 and I read it in 2015. Initially I thought it was 2017 but then I had to check the date of my review on goodreads to be sure. No wonder I had forgotten many intricate details of the story that had taken me time to remember! Don’t get me wrong, I remembered the story and what happened but this book had many characters so there were many details to remember, littlest things that seemed inconsequential at that time but had quite the profound meaning in book 2. I didn’t want to do a reread because I was too impatient to read One Step Enough. But can you blame me though? I thought book 1 ended very abruptly, yet, seeing the time that had passed since the publication, frankly I didn’t think there was any sequel planned for this book. I’m so glad that Ms. Kelly decided to give us another tour of Della and Owens’s life. I practically screamed when I saw One Step Enough on Amazon!

My Loving Vigil Keeping begins with the story of our h, Della Anders. She was an orphan whose father died, who had never met her mother but was told she ditched them when Della was an infant. At 12, after her father Frederick’s tragic death in a Colorado mine, Della came to live with her rich uncle Karl’s home only to find it no home of any kind. Frederick had loved her, and even poor, took care of her as best as he could but this house here was cold and cruel. Her aunt Caroline never took to her and found immense pleasure in taunting, berating or maligning Della to anyone she could find because she was poor; because her father was the proverbial family ‘blacksheep’ who brought ‘shame’ to the prominent Anders family; because she didn’t look like the tall and blonde Anders clan. But mostly because Della was illegitimate. Her tormentors included her two cousins as well. Della was never given a chance to mourn her father properly because Caroline forbade any such thing if she’s to live with them. Karl pretty much let his wife abuse the child and ignored it all so he himself can live in peace.

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Maiden Lane series by Elizabeth Hoyt has officially ended in 2017 after 12 full-length novels under its belt. The series also got some novellas of secondary characters thrown in between. I’ve been with this series since 2011—which originally started publishing from 2010—and have been following the publication of every book ever since. If you’ve followed or read any of my reviews of Maiden Lane, you’ll know this is one of my favorite series by one of my most favorite HR authors and it hurts to know that a series that has been a part of my life for so long, has finally come to an end. Which I suppose is quite natural, and I believe, probably was for the best because the series had veered away from the original storyline in the recent years.

Once Upon a Maiden Lane is one of the last 2 novellas that bid adieu to Maiden Lane. I bought both but saved them to savor in my leisure when I feel like going back to the Maiden Lane universe. It’s the story of Mary Whitsun, a lesser known character who made appearances in the first couple of installments of the series. I’ll not go to the storyline of the original series because TBH, this novella can be read as a complete standalone. Even in such a short space, the author brilliantly gives you info that you need to enjoy the story but it doesn’t connect to any of the installments as Ms. Hoyt’s books usually do.

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I bought Courting Carrie in Wonderland last year, not sure why I didn’t read it right away. Carla Kelly’s books are auto-buy for me, and when I saw the cover, I wanted to read this one. Yet somehow I never got around to. So to amend that, I picked it up last week without reading any reviews, as I do for many of Ms. Kelly’s books. Have to wonder again, why I didn’t read it last year cause the story was simply amazing, heart-touchingly so!

TBH, I had no idea what ‘Wonderland’ in Courting Carrie in Wonderland stood for. I thought it was one of those titles with a touch of fancy, maybe the H and h went somewhere they liked calling wonderland? Seems like I was almost correct in that regard. This book is set in the Yellowstone National Park, a place I’ve never heard of (I don’t live in the US), which was known to be the Wonderland. Even while reading I didn’t check out anything in google. I just read on, seemingly trying to figure out the place through our H and h, Ramsay and Carrie’s eyes and Ms. Kelly’s narratives. I’ll be honest that I struggled to picture the Park and it’s specific attractions that were mentioned as they’re known: such as the Old Faithful, the Chittenden Bridge (previously the Melan Arch Bridge), the viaduct that linked the edge of the mountains creating a perilous road and many other descriptions of the scenery, the flora and the fauna. Even then I could tell it was a marvelous place. After I finished I couldn’t wait to find out how those noted areas looked like, and was blown away by the beauty of the Park. I could imagine why Ramsay and Carrie (or anyone for that matter) would love the place and want to stay there. Like, I had this urge to visit Yellowstone ASAP, though that dream may never materialize for me. :(