Christmas is all Around by Martha Waters

 

Title:  Christmas is all Around

Author:  Martha Waters

Narrated by:  Nikki Massoud

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 56 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio. 

What is your favorite Christmas movie?  I have so many favorites!  My overall favorite Christmas movie and just one of my favorite movies of all time is It’s a Wonderful Life.

As a nine-year-old, Charlotte starred in what would become a classic Christmas movie.  As an adult, she has tried to distance herself from it and become an artist on her own merit.  On a visit with her sister in England, she ends up at Eden Priory and recognizes it as a setting from the movie she starred in as a kid.  She runs into a man changing into a reindeer costume, Graham, and they strike up a friendship based on a mutual dislike of Christmas.  Graham and his family commission Charlotte to create iconic Christmas scenes into illustrations to display to help keep the historic home running.  Will Graham and Charlotte have their own Christmas romance?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I loved the look into Christmas romance movies and their tropes.  They experienced so many of the tropes including being stuck in an inn with only one room left.

·       I enjoyed that slowly through the book, despite hating Christmas romance, Charlotte and Graham soon find themselves living in a Hallmark movie.

·       I loved the trips the two main characters take to Christmas locations around England.

·       Charlotte and Graham have great chemistry.

·       I would love to see this as a movie!

·       I have enjoyed this author’s Regency romance, and I thought this contemporary romance was just as fun.

·       I also always like love stories that include saving an old historic home.

Overall, Christmas is all Around by Martha Waters was a fun contemporary Christmas romance.  I highly recommend it.

To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters

 

Title: To Swoon and to Spar (The Regency Vows novel)

Author:  Martha Waters

Narrated by:  Anais Inara Chase and Joel Froomkin

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 15 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster @BookClubFavorites #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

 

What's your favorite book series?

To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters is the fourth novel in the Regency Vows series.  The fifth book, To Woo and to Wed just came out this month.  This is a great regency romance series and I have fun reading a new novel in it every year.

Viscount Penvale has been working and saving for five years to buy back his family estate, Trethwick Abbey, from his Uncle.  He is excited when his Uncle finally agrees to sell . . . if Penvale will marry his ward, Jane.  Jane is socially awkward and seems to have a waspish tongue.  Penvale seems to Jane to be a useless aristocrat.  Once they move to Trethwick Abbey, it seems that the estate is haunted.  Will these two make their relationship work and is the house really haunted?

What I liked about this novel:

·       I loved the enemies to lovers story.  It reminded me of Ten Things I Hate About You or Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew in ways.

·       I loved how Jane is a reader and there is much discussion of books, especially Jane Austen.

·       The haunting of the house reminded me of Northanger Abbey and other Gothic tales.  It was a lot of fun.  I especially loved the set-up of the haunting in the prologue.

·       I enjoyed seeing the couples I fell in love with in the past books show up again.  This book does work as a standalone if you have not read the other books in the series.

·       The humor is fun in this book, especially as it relates to the haunting.

·       The romance in this novel was a slow burn that became steamy.  I thought it was hilarious that Jane had discovered a stash of steamy books in the library left by some previous owner that she read to educate herself.

·       I loved the narrators of this audiobook.  The two narrators were the two different viewpoints in this book, Jane and Penvale.  I especially loved narrator Joel Froomkin’s accent.

Overall, this was exactly the fun, light romantic read I needed right now.  The haunting elements brought even more fun to this regency romance.  I highly recommend this book and this series.

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

 

Title:  To Love and to Loathe

Author:  Martha Water

Narrated by:  Joel Froomkin, Anais Inara Chase

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 10 minutes

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What are your favorite flowers this time of year?  I love anything colorful in the gloom of winter.

Diana, Lady Templeton is a widow and loves to match wits with a known rake, Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham.  They make a wager of 100 pounds that Jeremy will marry within the year.  As Diana is his good friend that he trusts, Jeremy also goes to her with a troublesome problem that his latest paramour criticized him in the bedroom.  Will she be able to help him out with his technique?  Diana thinks that if she takes Jeremy up on his offer, this will only help her win the bet.  At a house party, things go awry as the try to both win their side of the bet.

This book is very steamy.  I loved the witty banter.  It had me laughing out loud in several spots.  I love a good Regency house party and this book was a lot of fun.  I loved how Diana was a strong willed and independent woman and I also love how Jeremy and Diana could talk honestly to each other.

Joel Froomkin and Anais Inara Chase took turns as narrators for the chapters narrated by Diana or Jeremy.  They were fun narrators, and I enjoyed their characters.  Froomkin in particular had a charming aristocratic drawl that I found to be quite delightful.

This is the second novel in the Regency Vows series.  I’ve read books 1 and 3.  I thought I should get book 2 read before the new book 4 comes out!

 

To Marry and to Meddle by Martha Waters

 Title:  To Marry and to Meddle

Author:  Martha Waters

Narrated by:  Anais Inara Chase

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 35 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

 To Marry and to Meddle was the perfect book for me in April. Life was feeling stressful and I was looking for a fun escapism read.  To Marry and to Meddle fit the bill and was a very enjoyable romantic comedy audiobook.

 Lady Emily Turner has been a debutante for six seasons.  While she is a beautiful and respectable lady, her father’s debts had ensured that her only suitor is a man to who he owes debts.  Lord Julian Belfry has scandalized society and his own family by owning his own theatre, the Belfry, and acting in it.  He decides he will repair his reputation by asking Lady Emily to marry him.  Lady Emily decides this will help her and her family so she accepts.  Will a marriage of convenience turn out to be a marriage full of love for them both?

 I really enjoyed this light hearted audiobook. I have read the first book in the Regency Vows series, but I do need to go back and read the second book.  I love the friendships between the ladies and I loved Emily and Julian’s romance.  I especially thought it was funny that Emily finds a kitten and it seems to always interrupt the two at inopportune times.  I love how they move from friends to lovers.  I also love they found strength with each other to help them through troubled relationships with their birth families.  The humor was very fun.

 Overall, To Marry and to Meddle was a fun Regency Romance with heart. 

To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters

Regency romances have always been a genre I’ve enjoyed, but I’ve found them to be great escapism reading during our current COVID-19 crisis.  To Have and to Hoax was a delightful novel full of romance, humor, and unforgettable characters.

At a party during her debut season, Lady Violet Grey is found alone on a balcony with Lord James Audley.  Lord Audley being an honorable man, proposes to her and they are the great love match of the season.  Five years later, the couple is found to be anything but a happy love match.  They had an argument four years earlier and have lived in a cold silence since then.  What was this argument about and what extremes will Violet go to to capture her husband’s attention again?

To Have and to Hoax was very entertaining.  I couldn’t wait to see what scrape Violet and James would get into next to try to outdo each other.  I also loved when they would figure out that they had been had by the other.  It reminded me of a 1930’s screwball comedy in a Regency England setting.  The romance was rather steamy at times and very romantic.  I really loved the overall story of Violet and James coming to terms with the mistakes they had made in the past and figuring out how to make their marriage work in the future.  I also vastly enjoyed the side characters.  I really hope Waters writes another book with these characters as I would love to see what the future has in store for them. 

Favorite Quotes:

“However, bloodshed did have an odd way of spoiling an evening.”

“But as I cannot undo the past, I am merely going to do the best I can in the present.”

Overall, To Have and to Hoax is a delightful comedy and historical regency romance.

Book Source:  Review Copy as part of the Simon & Schuster Blog Tour.  Thank-you!