Your Scandalous Ways, Loretta Chase

Part of the Weekend of Birthday Awesomeness was wandering through the bookstore and thinking, I wonder if there's a new Chase? And there was. Then I got home and realized it wasn't actually released until for three more days, so clearly it was a birthday present from fate or something.

She is my favorite romance novel author, because she brings a lot more humor and a lot more character to her books than anyone else. Also, it's practically never about a hapless, charming debutante catching the eye of a man who has sworn off marriage; her heroines are often widows and divorcees, and sometimes even working spinsters. 

In this book the heroine is not only a divorcee, but has gone on to become a high-class prostitute to royalty in Italy, and the hero, who is a blue-blood younger son and part-time spy/jewel thief. It's just about the best premise ever, and I loved the book a lot, but I wish it had been longer -- maybe a thousand pages longer? -- so there could have been more of his backstory and more of hers, and more of them having adventures together. He doesn't look down on her for sleeping around, and she doesn't let him get away with his high-handed shit, and they are lovely together. I just wanted more about them.

It's no Lord Perfect, but all of Chase's books are like... Eating raw cookie dough on the couch in old jeans with The Goonies on TV. 

Grade: B

Originally posted 2008