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A Lady Awakened (Blackshear Family), by Cecilia Grant
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In Cecilia Grant’s emotionally rich and deeply passionate Regency romance debut, a deal with a rumored rogue turns a proper young woman into . . . A Lady Awakened.
Newly widowed and desperate to protect her estate and beloved servants from her malevolent brother-in-law, Martha Russell conceives a daring plan. Or rather, a daring plan to conceive. After all, if she has an heir on the way, her future will be secured. Forsaking all she knows of propriety, Martha approaches her neighbor, a London exile with a wicked reputation, and offers a strictly business proposition: a month of illicit interludes . . . for a fee.
Theophilus Mirkwood ought to be insulted. Should be appalled. But how can he resist this siren in widow’s weeds, whose offer is simply too outrageously tempting to decline? Determined she’ll get her money’s worth, Theo endeavors to awaken this shamefully neglected beauty to the pleasures of the flesh—only to find her dead set against taking any enjoyment in the scandalous bargain. Surely she can’t resist him forever. But could a lady’s sweet surrender open their hearts to the most unexpected arrival of all . . . love?
- Sales Rank: #156508 in Books
- Brand: Grant, Cecilia
- Published on: 2011-12-27
- Released on: 2011-12-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.80" h x .90" w x 4.10" l, .39 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 368 pages
Amazon.com Review
Featured Guest Review: Eloisa James on A Lady Awakened
Eloisa James holds an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale is currently an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her "double life" as an academic and a romance writer is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she's written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women's magazines such as More to writers' journals such as the Romance Writers' Report.
Martha Russell is a proper, laced-up widow, who finds more pleasure in charitable acts than she ever did in her marriage bed. Theophilus Mirkwood is a known rake whose all-too-true reputation has basically gotten him thrown out of London.
There couldn't be a couple less likely to fall in love--which is exactly why it's so satisfying when they do. Cecilia Grant has given us an incredibly sexy and surprisingly sweet debut that hits the perfect note for a classic "opposites attract" storyline.
Like so many great romances (and maybe real-life love stories too), A Lady Awakened starts with an indecent proposal. Martha's husband just died and she needs to become pregnant immediately--yesterday!--in order to pass off her baby as the heir to the Russell estate. If she doesn't, not only will she be destitute, but the estate will be seized by her late husband's cruel, lascivious brother.
There's one problem: in order to become pregnant, she needs to go to bed with someone. Well, who better than her notorious new neighbor Theophilus? Martha doesn't expect to get any pleasure from their bargain … and at first she doesn't. But everything changes when their relationship becomes more than just physical.
There's so much I adore about this novel--from the hilariously awkward scene in which Martha propositions Theo to the immensely sensual one in which she first succumbs to pleasure. It's not just that Theo is great in bed: there are plenty of historical novels featuring heroes with remarkable skills in that area. What makes A Lady Awakened stand out is that Cecilia Grant pulls the heartstrings of a much deeper story, the tale of how both Theo and Martha change and grow together. I really loved how they transformed one another. Martha, in particular, gives Theo a sense of purpose that allows him to escape a fairly meaningless existence.
I kept thinking about these two long after finishing the last page, and I'm sure you will, too. It's the kind of romance that sticks with you. If you read only one debut this year, this is the one to read.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Martha Russell is a desperate woman. After her husband Richard’s unexpected death, ownership of Seton Park, her current home, will revert to the new heir, the reprehensible James Russell. Unless, that is, Martha is pregnant with Richard’s son. While Martha knows she is not pregnant, the rest of the countryside does not, which gives Martha one month to rectify the situation. Martha’s new neighbor, Theophilus Mirkwood, is rumored to have been banished to the countryside to repent his wicked life in London. All Martha has to do is convince Theo to agree to a month of discreet trysts with her, and she may wind up with the heir she desperately needs. The only problem is that Martha did not factor falling in love with Theo into her simple business proposition. Grant expertly imbues her elegantly written, emotionally powerful debut with a compelling combination of exquisitely nuanced characters and lusciously sensual romance. Sweet, poignant, and completely satisfying, A Lady Awakened is a romance to treasure. --John Charles
Review
“A marvelous gem of a book . . . I loved it!”—New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh
“If you read only one debut this year, this is the one to read! Incredibly sexy . . . surprisingly sweet. I loved A Lady Awakened!”—New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James
“Grant expertly imbues her elegantly written, emotionally powerful debut with a compelling combination of exquisitely nuanced characters and lusciously sensual romance. Sweet, poignant, and completely satisfying, A Lady Awakened is a romance to treasure.” –Booklist starred review
“Sensitive and sensual…Grant details Regency country life beautifully, with a firm and respectful hand, and the subtle yet engrossing courtship is enchanting and gratifying as it transforms these two strong-minded and very unlikely lovers.” –Publishers Weekly
Most helpful customer reviews
56 of 63 people found the following review helpful.
I'm stunned (but obviously not speechless)
By Ann Elliot
This book could not have surprised me more if it had fallen from the sky and smacked me on the head.
I chose an ARC of the book and felt some regret when it arrived. The characters are not immediately likeable and the plot is morally reprehensible.
Martha, the heroine, is prudish, judgemental and a hypocrite of great magnitude who mentally condemns a congregation member for falling asleep during Sunday service, even as she is plotting to cheat a stranger of his inheritance by doing her best to become pregnant by another stranger.
Theo, the hero, is the hapless new neightbor who agrees to help Martha in her pregnancy plot. He is 26, but his maturity level is that of a 15-year-old.
Theo's sense of worth derives from his only skill--pleasing women in bed. Martha's sense of worth derives from her image as a morally upright pillar of rectitude. Their daily "exercises" in bed are doomed. He is duty bound to give her pleasure; she cannot let herself feel pleasure or she will cease to be a "good" person.
The daily bedding contains some of the most awkward, frustrating, funny, miserable sex scenes ever written.
After a chapter or two, like the moment in "Wizard of Oz" when the screen goes from black and white to color, the author's marvelous writing style kicks in and the story is transformed. Every word is chosen with care to make the tale feel authentic and often to make the reader smile. Even Martha is careful about word choice as she constantly stumbles onto double entendres and corrects herself.
The characters, like real people, are much more than they seem on the surface. They have faults, strengths, childhood difficulties to overcome and opportunities for growth.
The two find tolerance, affection and then love as they face difficulties together, not the least of which are their attempts to improve the indigent Weaver family, including a taciturn mother, large brood of children, incessantly squalling baby and a huge pig determined to move into the family living quarters.
Readers looking for a standard romance novel will be disappointed by this book and would do well to read a few reviews to know what to anticipate.
Readers looking for a charming, well-written gem of a romantic book will find this one a stunner.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Grant's writing is exquisite.
By OLT
When you set down on paper the plot to this HR, it doesn't look all that appealing and might even seem offensive to some persons' sensibilities. Newly-widowed Martha Russell wants to retain control of her late husband's estate and can only do so by producing an heir within the appropriate number of months of her first year of mourning. Unfortunately, she was not pregnant when her husband died. What to do? Hire the stud services of newly-arrived neighbor Theo Mirkwood, whose father has exiled him to their nearby Pencarragh estate as punishment for his wayward ways. She has one month to conceive or it's off to live with her brother and his wife and her brother-in-law will come to take over the Russell property.
Well, she's not as mercenary as that sounds. Said brother-in-law is not a good person. He seduces helpless women, wastes money, neglects his wife, and would care not at all about the welfare and education of the tenants at the estate or even about the condition of the estate itself. Martha wants desperately to protect those people who have been relying on her during her time as mistress of the Russell property.
Since there's a deadline for getting pregnant, we have sex scenes early on in the book, but it's business-arrangement sex for a good part of the story. Martha is bound and determined not to have any pleasure in their encounters and encourages Theo to just do it and get it over with every time they have sex. No dawdling around with unnecessary kissing and foreplay. Enjoying the experience would only add to the guilt she's already feeling about what she is doing.
Well, the rest you just have to read. Theo isn't into necrophilia so he's working towards getting some response from her in bed, while she is blocking his attempts at all cost. And at the same time, out of bed they are becoming acquainted with each other as real people, not just sex partners. Martha begins to see the goodness and responsibility hiding in Theo's fun-loving persona. Theo sees the real caring and feeling woman that cool and aloof Martha works so hard to hide from others.
The best thing about the book is the beautiful writing. I venture to say I enjoyed the way the story is written much more than the story itself. This is polished, flowing, wonderful writing and was a joy to read. Very few authors of mass market paperback HRs write this well. IMO, Grant is in a class with Joanna Bourne and Meredith Duran, two exceptionally talented writers of HRs.
Other books and movies have tried variations on this theme of using or hiring someone, not a lover, to procreate but this one by Grant is by far the best HR with that theme that I have read. Other recent attempts have been Lorraine Heath's Waking Up With the Duke (London's Greatest Lovers) and Anna Campbell's My Reckless Surrender but Grant's is better than those. Perhaps comparable in romance and poignancy to the Grant book is the movie Firelight (Le lien secret)- Sophie Marceau (Import - All Regions), a beautiful movie set in the 1800s.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Took a bit too long for the lady to awaken
By TinaW
I would characterize this book as one where the parts are better than the whole.
This is the author's debut novel and I must give my biggest praise for the writing. There are moments of absolute brilliance in the writing here. Places where Theo's thoughts are almost poetic or where one of Martha's observations (usually about male sexuality) is so dry and dead-on that I was startled into laughter.
She also created a very strong sense of place. I felt very much the poverty of the tenant farmers on Theo's land and the class distinctions that existed between the titled class, local gentry and the laborers.
Theo was also a well developed character that didn't feel like a typical romance hero. He is a wastrel son and acts like it. But not in the dissipated, don't-give-a-damn alpha hero way. But rather in the way a spoiled heir would behave. He has no discernible skills but his father exiles him to their Sussex estate to make him grow up a little. Underneath it all he is a good person who through the book learns responsibility. He is also warm and approachable. And while you might sometimes wonder at the ease in which he enters into a bargain with a total stranger to make a baby, you are never in doubt of his sincerity in trying to connect with the heroine on both a physical and emotional level.
And therein lies what I think is one of the more problematic issues with the novel. The heroine Martha. In some ways she is a great character construct. She is somewhat of a reformer, believing in education of women and the bettering of the poor. She is high minded and somewhat of a rigid moralist (the whole conceive-a-baby-and-pass-it-off-as-your-dead-husband's-to-keep-an-estate scheme notwithstanding). I really didn't mind the more rigid aspects of her personality or even the prickliness of her nature, necessarily. But Somehow everything added up to her being a very distant person who I found to be hard to really like. I really tried to put my finger on why I found it so difficult to warm to her. In the end I think it is because her inner dialogue and thoughts didn't really let me in. Her private thoughts were just as distancing as her external actions. So as a reader I couldn't really get in sympathy with her.
There was also a layer of hypocrisy there as well. Truthfully Martha does acknowledge this, but still, I couldn't help but dislike the fact that she felt very moralistic and judgey regarding Theo's attempts to actually get her to enjoy sex. She couldn't like having sex because that would be wrong. But propositioning a stranger to get you pregnant to steal an inheritance was ok?
My other main issue with the book is the pacing. The lion's share of the book took too much time with Martha being distant & moral and judgey and with Theo trying his mighty best to thaw her out. It was sometimes uncomfortable to read about her unbending will to stay unaffected and his disappointment in his efforts. It had the effect of making the book feel like it was standing still. The bedroom scenes served to stall the forward momentum because it seems like Theo was making no progress whatsoever.
When Martha gets into the groove, begins to finally(!) enjoy herself, I noticed only about 77 pages left in the book. But it was as if that opened up a dam or something because those last 77 pages moved much better than the first 269 pages. The pace crackled, events got exciting, I couldn't wait to see how the whole plan turned out. While I struggled a bit to get into that first part of the book, that last bit became a real page turner.
I liked how things did turn out and I liked the ending. So while this book didn't work for me on some levels, I would definitely look for future books by this writer.
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