Title: Wilde in Love
Series: The Wildes of Lindow Castle #1
Author: Eloisa James
Release date: October 31, 2017
Cliffhanger: No
Rating: 3 stars
SYNOPSIS:
Willa presents the façade of a serene young lady to the world. Her love of books and bawdy jokes is purely for the delight of her intimate friends. She wants nothing to do with a man whose private life is splashed over every newspaper.
Alaric has never met a woman he wanted for his own . . . until he meets Willa. He’s never lost a battle.
But a spirited woman like Willa isn’t going to make it easy. . . .
The first book in Eloisa James’s dazzling new series set in the Georgian period glows with her trademark wit and sexy charm—and introduces a large, eccentric family. Readers will love the Wildes of Lindow Castle!
Purchase Links:
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About the Author:
New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa's very first book that she "found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar"; later People Magazine raved that "romance writing does not get much better than this." Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers' Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists.
After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her "double life" 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.
Eloisa...on her double life:
When I'm not writing novels, I'm a Shakespeare professor. It's rather like having two lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance; I'll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. It's like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my novels. I often weave early modern poetry into my work; the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century.
When I rip off my power suit, whether it's academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth; when the little girl in Fool For Love threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life.
So I'm a writer, a professor, a mother - and a wife. My husband Alessandro is Italian, born in Florence. We spend the lazy summer months with his mother and sister in Italy. It always strikes me as a huge irony that as a romance writer I find myself married to a knight, a cavaliere, as you say in Italian.After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her "double life" 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.
Eloisa...on her double life:
When I'm not writing novels, I'm a Shakespeare professor. It's rather like having two lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance; I'll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. It's like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my novels. I often weave early modern poetry into my work; the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century.
When I rip off my power suit, whether it's academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth; when the little girl in Fool For Love threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life.
One more thing...I'm a friend. I have girlfriends who are writers and girlfriends who are Shakespeare professors. And I have girlfriends who are romance readers. In fact, we have something of a community going on my website. Please stop by and join the conversation on my readers' pages.
Follow her:
Wilde in Love by Eloisa JamesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
One thing could be said for him—for all the Wildes, it seemed. When they went down, they really went down.
Wilde in Love was my first Eloisa James book. (I know, I know. Where have I been? Living under a rock?) While this wasn't a resounding success for me, I can certainly see why so many people are fans of her stories. I'll be very interested to continue on with the next in the series, Diana and North's book, Too Wilde to Wed. In the last chapter, we're left with quite the cliffy between these two, and I'm looking forward to seeing how their reconciliation will unfold.
As the first book in any series, there is the possibility of falling prey to having to set the scene, building a whole set of characters' backstories, and creating lead-ins and curiosity for the following installments. From my experience, this can sometimes detract from the main characters' romance. There was a considerable amount of supporting characters and a couple of side stories took up space alongside of Willa and Alaric's relationship. While I can't say that I was necessarily bored, I didn't feel as if the pace was as steady as I would have liked.
In the first half, we had Lord Alaric in hot pursuit of Willa. But her prejudices towards him disallowed her from giving him a chance to prove himself to her. She was very firm over the fact that she did not want to take a chance on this man, that he was far removed from the kind of person she always imagined herself with. This wall she put up between them didn't encourage any leeway in the advancement in their relationship.
The second half seemed to rocket them forward from 0-100 on the falling-in-love o-meter. I wouldn't exactly call it insta-love, but it was certainly moving at a pretty accelerated rate. When you realize that they moved from introduction, to courtship, to engagement, to marriage in the span of about two weeks, it falls short of feeling natural.
Lord Alaric is an author-adventurer who has been traveling the world for the last ten years. After his brother Horatius, heir to the dukedom had passed away, he's been indulging in his passion and zest to explore. His travel books are non-fiction accounts of his exciting experiences from China to the African jungle. On his return to London, he gets a rude awakening when he discovers that in his absence, he has become something of a celebrity.
An anonymous playwright's fictional account of him and his travels has completely twisted public perception of who he is, and what he has written. Some may have been flattered, and welcomed all of this attention. This was not the case here. Poor Alaric felt nothing but confusion, frustration, and a desperate need to remove himself from the adoration and the pedestal he has been placed on.
For me, this was comparable to a modern day actor who deals with a lack of privacy, false stories, rumors being spread, and losing their identity to a false persona that has been created for them. This caused a lot of disconnect from the story on my part. It was just not believable to me in any fashion that a man could be so ruthlessly obsessed over and pursued by young marriageable women of that age. During the Georgian period, women were held to strict rules of manners and propriety regarding their speech and behavior. There was a noticeable dichotomy between Willa's behavior, and the other ladies surrounding her.
For example, Willa didn't find it seemly to shrug her shoulders, have a second glass of sherry, or even raise her eyebrow in disbelief. It would have been frowned upon by high society. But I am supposed to be led to believe that women are gathering on the dock by the masses to greet his return? That they follow him around the room like they're stalking their prey, and hang on his arm when he is clearly unwilling? They were even collecting prints of him and plastering them everywhere, including their bedrooms. While it did create some humerous moments, it was all pretty over-exaggerated for my taste. This was the main point of contention between Willa and Alaric, her need for dignity and privacy verses his unwanted attention.
Willa Ffynche made unfair judgements about him before even meeting him, or reading any of his books.
Lord Alaric was enthralling in much the same way that tigers in the Royal Menagerie were. She liked to observe them, but wouldn’t dream of taking one home.
I could understand how that could happen, as no one in the city seemed to listen to Alaric's efforts to debunk a lot of the misconceptions formed about him. After around the halfway mark, you see her start to soften, and really see how disabused she had been about his character. Ignoring her growing passion for Alaric was like trying to hold back a crashing tide from the shore. Fruitless and inevitably doomed to failure. His wicked smile and determination to conquer brought all of her hidden desires to the surface. Once she got a taste of him, there was no going back.
Alaric was a wonderful treasure trove filled with beautiful quotes describing his love for Willa. Just his character alone made reading this story worth it. His thoughts and emotions were so exquisitely captured.
He had the sudden conviction that if he could see his own heart, he would see an image of Willa in the middle of it: composed, brilliant, loving, organized Willa.
Life was an odd thing. He’d spent ten years floating around the world, only to come home and discover that he had an anchor waiting.
It wasn’t just the clean way her cheek swept to her jaw. Or the wide eyes that had undoubtedly been serenaded by a hundred dubious poets. The sum of her was so much greater than the parts.
I could go on...but I'll let you discover the rest of the gems Eloisa James has created for yourself.
I think Mr. Parth Sterling's book is going to be the one I look forward to in the series the most! He was brooding, smart as a whip, and battling an obvious attraction for Lavinia. Willa's best friend was the aggravating thorn in his side that he couldn't remove. Their scenes together were so good, I found myself looking forward to any time that they would interact.
Overall, though I felt as if some aspects were a little unrealistic, and a conflict at the end to be predictable, it was a really sweet romance and more than enough to tempt me to continue the series.
Not only that, but the epilogue was such a satisfying and perfect way to close this couple's story.
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