About book The Deception Of The Emerald Ring (2006)
Greetings ladies and gentlemen! If you missed my review for the last book in this series, The Masque of the Black Tulip, I’ll give you a slight refresher. Our hero’s name is Shoulders because you can bet your sweet ass the width of them will be mentioned more than his actual name. Our heroine is Chemise as all our hero seems to think about is getting her out of hers. Also, spies. Now on with the show! Dramatization:Shoulders: I must run away with her! I love her and I’ll have her any way I can get her. Why should I question why a young lady with everything to gain doesn’t want the typical massive society wedding? What’s that? Of course she’s not in such a rush because she’s already carrying someone else’s child, she’s a respectable young lady!Chemise: What’s this coach pulling up to the house in the middle of the night for? What has my harlot of a sister done this time? I bet she’s knocked up and is rushing to elope with some other man to avoid the scandal. I must save our family from shame! *dashes out into the darkness**is accidentally kidnapped by Shoulder’s servants because they think she’s her sister*Shoulders: Damn this delay! Why does the spymaster need me now of all times? Doesn’t he know I have to meet my beloved at a shady inn before being hurriedly married by an even shadier cleric?*hurriedly finishes monumentally important spy business while more concerned with impending elopement instead of the safety of the nation**dashes off to meet his soon to be bride*Chemise: Unhand me you brutes! You have the wrong girl!Shoulders: My beloved, she’s come! *throws open carriage door**makes out with beloved**realizes it’s not his beloved**still has erection*…awkward…Random side characters that know main characters: What’s this! We’ve caught you making out with the sister of the woman you claim to love! Haha, now you have to marry her!Shoulders: I'm an honorable man. I will do my duty to the girl I’ve just ruined but whom I now believe tricked me into ruining her because the alternative is that this is all one big misunderstanding. Surely that can't be it. But I am an honorable man and so will marry her. Honorably. Chemise: Oh no! What a mess I’ve made of things. *they get married**he hates her**he leaves their wedding feast to go to Ireland and do spy things**she gets shitfaced*Chemise: What a scoundrel! He’s left me alone and everyone will know! The humiliation! *swigs scotch*I’ll show him, I’ll show everyone!*drunkenly dashes off to Ireland**wakes up hung over on a boat**finds him**one monumental misunderstanding follows another until…*Shoulders: I was so wrong about you Chemise, so wrong. And about your sister too. I thought I loved her. I now know it was only a passing fancy. She’s nothing compared to the glory that is you. Please forgive me for being such a rake. Chemise: Of course I forgive you Shoulders, I love you. Yes, even though you treated me like shite when you thought I was a conniving little wench and still haven’t properly apologized, I love you. Shoulders: Oh ChemiseChemise: Oh Shoulders*kissing noises**he finally gets his hands on that godforsaken garment she’s named after**coitus**simultaneous perfect orgasms**they catch the bad guy the very next day*Once again, that all sounds pretty damn clichéd. Well, it is. You know what? I don’t give a shit. I loved every single second of it and I will continue to read every book in this series. Call them my guilty pleasure, call me a bloody hypocrite, I don’t care. I just love the quirky inner monologues: “…she glanced sideways to where his fingers rested just past her shoulder. Not touching her. Not trying to touch her. Just there, with nothing to indicate if it was an intentional arm or an accidental arm.She was being ridiculous. An arm wasn’t accidental; it was an appendage, and it had to go somewhere.”I just love the beautiful depictions of scenery:“The sound of the horses’ hooves changed as the carriage rattled from Capel Street onto the bridge that spanned the Liffey. In the water below, the reflection of the carriage lamps looked like the watchtowers of a drowned city.”And I just love the duel storylines of the escapades of historical characters and the modern day grad student who’s researching them. So if you like historical romance done right, try this series.
I would actually give this book 2.5 stars. It just didn't really work for me in some areas, especially after how great the last book was. My problem with this book really lies with the two main characters, Geoff and Letty. When Letty wakes in the pre-dawn hours of a London night, she hears suspicious thuds coming from her sister, Mary's, room. Knowing what her sister was about, Letty checks the ally and, sure enough, there is a carriage there, waiting to whisk her sister off to an elopement with Geoffrey, Lord Pinchingdale. In an effort to stop her sister dragging their family name through the muddied streets of England, Letty leaves the comfort of her room so that she can tell Lord Pinchingdale to clear off and come back in the morning like a proper gentleman. I could understand Letty's motives, I just couldn't believe she could be quite so interfering. And it wasn't an endearing sort of interfering. I shudder to think what my older sister's reaction would be if I attempted to thwart her romance... However, nothing works out according to Letty's plan as she is unceremoniously tossed into the carriage by the driver and taken straight to Lord Pinchingdale, who grabs her from the carriage and kisses her heartily in full view of a few of their acquaintances out for a late night pint. Of course, since Letty has been compromised, Geoff feels it his duty to marry her.Both characters, of course, don't handle this forced marriage well. Neither one communicates with the other. This was exceedingly frustrating for me, as the reader, because I feel like this actually detracted from the plot rather than drove it on. And because of this awkwardness, the plot moved in jumps and starts like someone learning how to drive a stick shift car. Immediately after the wedding, Geoff takes off for Ireland, without even telling his new wife , to rendezvous with the Pink Carnation in an effort to thwart an Irish uprising. Honestly, I have a hard time believing that a man who felt honor bound to marry a woman he didn't want to marry because of a mistaken midnight kiss would feel much less honor bound to then inform this woman that he would be leaving on their wedding day for an extended period of time. Geoff then proceeds to act like a pouting five year old for much of the rest of the book, which does nothing to recommend his character to me. And then to have him realize in a single moment that Letty couldn't be what he thought her to be and to simultaneously develop feelings for her stretched even my suspension of disbelief.And Letty is basically useless as a character. This book probably would have been a lot better without her presence in it. She's not particularly smart or witty. She makes rash decisions without really thinking them through that generally have unpleasant consequences for all involved. She blunders through everything and gets in the way of the important spy work that is going on for the sake of her country. She's not all that likeable and so I didn't really care much what happened to her.The Eloise plot was pretty satisfying, though, and I really looked forward to the moments when the historical story would break off and the modern story would resume. I'm looking forward to seeing how her story progresses in the next book and I am happy to see a bit of character growth in her. So, despite how I feel about this book, I am full steam ahead to the next book, which I believe focuses on Lord Vaughn, so I know there will, at the very least, be some diverting dialogue.
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The Deception of the Emerald Ring is the third book in Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series and I have to confess I haven't read the first two. But it seems to stand well on its own. It's a light read, which means that although the characters get into some dangerous situations, they never stop tossing quips at each other. That's fun, but I suppose it could be disappointing to someone expecting a serious spy novel, especially since this is based on a real situation when France, England's enemy at the time, was conspiring with Irish rebels against the crown.The plot is about a nineteenth century, English marriage between Letty Alsworthy and Lord Geoffrey Pinchingdale that comes about through a series of events including a mistaken identity, a botched elopement, and an over the top sense of honor that doesn't seem well advised. The romance in this book starts with a marriage rather than ending with one.The 1800s story is bracketed by a modern tale about a woman researching the nineteenth century events as part of her work on her doctorate. I couldn't see any reason for the modern story, although it might have made more sense to me if I'd read the preceding books in the series.One of the aspects of the book I found most interesting was Letty's relationship with her older sister, Mary. Lord Pinchingdale was supposed to marry Mary, not Letty. Letty was the less attractive, less sophisticated, sister. Mary had been trying to catch a suitable man for awhile and Lord Pinchingdale seemed her best hope.Letty had a fair inkling of what Mary had been thinking. Letty's older sister had passed three Seasons as society's reigning incomparable. Three Seasons of amassing accolades, bouquets, even the odd sonnet, but shockingly few marriage proposals. Of the offers that had come in, three had been from younger sons, four from titles without wealth, and an even larger number from wealth without title. One by one, she had watched her more eligible suitors, the first sons, with coronets on their coaches and country estates to spare, contract matches with the chinless daughters of dukes, or bustling city heiresses.Mary hadn't wanted to take any more chances so she planned an elopement. That's when things started going awry. Letty compares herself to her sister throughout the book in an intriguing manner that says more about her own self confidence than it does about her sister.The Deception of the Emerald Ring is a fun read based on a real event. I enjoyed it.Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions
—Steve Lindahl
The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren WilligAfter her weekend at Colin Selwicks country estate ends rather quickly (that’s what happens when you almost kiss and are interrupted by a phone call) Eloise Kelly is back in London looking for more information on the Pink Carnations activities. Only she keeps getting distracted by the fact that her cell phone is not ringing and Colin is not calling. That is until she stumbles upon a possible link to the Pink Carnations activities in Ireland.Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe has longed work with the Purple Gentian along with the Pink Carination. Geoffrey is about to elope with Mary Alsworthy when her younger sister Letty tries to stop them she is accidentally ruined and Geoffry must marry her instead. But the very day of his wedding he leaves for Ireland to help the War Department stop the Black Tulip, who has escaped, once and for all. Not about to be ruined and abandon in the same week Letty follows Geoffrey to Ireland were she becomes involved in The Pink Carination plots to stop and Irish rebellion and stop the Black Tulip. But her husband not only does not want her involved with these plots he does not want her in Ireland after all he was in love with her sister not Letty. But with both their lives at stake can Geoffrey and Letty put aside their differences to save England and will they ever realize that they just might be perfect for each other after all? And more importantly why has Colin disappeared and why has he not called Eloise in a week.One again I really liked this book. I enjoy the stories of the couples in 1800's England but I really like the story of Eloise and Colin and have to stop myself from skipping ahead to see what happens next to them.
—MJ
This is the third book in a series that takes place in England during the regency period. It focuses on the leagues of English Spies ala the Scarlet Pimpernel (aristocrats who spy!) who are busy doing their part to foil Napolean. This was the first in this series that I read (the pink carnation series)and while I think reading the earlier books would have fleshed out some of the characters in this book a bit more, it wasn't a big problem. I wasn't sure going into this if this was going to be straight historical fiction or a historical romance. Note: it is decidely a romance so if that's not your cup of tea beware. I liked this book. It was a nice, light romp of a read - I liked all the historical characters and feel like the relationship set-up was interesting with a low level of annoying contrivances. I mean there is the fact that once the heroine realizes the nature of the misunderstanding with Geoff, she doesn't make a point to try and explain - in fact she never really does which seems more of a "let's see how long we can draw this conflict out" rather than actual human nature/behavior. But you get some of that in most romance novels else many of them would be about 100 pages long. My one big beef with the whole series is the author's use of a parallel modern story. I can see how when she was coming up with the idea that it seemed like such a brilliant and interesting device but it did not work for me at all. I hated the modern day "heroine" Eloise who is supposedly working on her phD at Harvard but is so silly, shallow, and just plain ridiculous I found it hard to swallow or take her as a serious academic. Eloise is the quintessential heroine of a chick-lit novel and while I like a romance or two I cannot stand chick-lit so its likely just a personal thing for me. I wanted to completely skip these sections of the book but was afraid I'd miss something. I was always annoyed when they popped up.While I usually hate starting "in the middle"of a series I was glad I started with this one. It was all right and I have since gone back and read the first book in the series and I really disliked it. So I'm gonna try a few of the others in the series and hope they are more like this then the first book and also hope that I work up the courage to skip the modern day chapters.
—Stephanie
