4.5 stars. So, I just bought this book from online shop which usually sell many used books. The price is cheap. Just 50000 rupiahs or maybe 4,99 dollars. I decide to read Charming the Prince, first because I really love the blurb, its rare to find character letter for a synopsis. And I'm kinda stuck with UF/PNR books I read lately. So I want to change my usual genre for a little :)I read this for 4 hours.And of course that a good sign! If I can't stop read it, that's mean the story is good. And yes,Charming The Prince is really good. So, what we have from this book?Charming the Prince is re-telling from Cinderella story. With "Cinderella" have a weak father, evil stepmother, and 10 bothersome, annoying step-siblings. Lady Willow of Bedlington hope her new mother will love her. Alas, what her stepmother do is to poison her father with her sweet venom talk. She make them poor and that make Willow as servant for her step-siblings..The story move forward 13 years later. We meet the Prince Charming (he is charming after all), Lord Bannor the Bold, Pride of English and Terror of The French. Must be always successful winning every war and captured all his enemy, but not this war.. Not when his enemies are his TEN children, whose face like angel, but their attitude are worse than Black Prince (King Edwards's son) himself. Bannor then ask to his steward, Sir Hollis, to search him a bride. An unattractive, meek, not so beautiful woman, but have maternal instinct.To babysit his children of course and left him at peace...To Bannor's surprise, Hollis take Willow as the bride. Willow who desperate to go out from her home, and want to find her own happiness, is insulted with the way Bannor treated her. Little she know Bannor avoid her, because he attracted to Willow, but don't want to sire another babe. Since Bannor believe he was to virile, and said, its must be curse. Because his father and grandfather have so many children too (the usual slogan of Bannor house is to conquer and die which he change as be fruity and multiply )Not just from Bannor act, his children decide to "torture" Willow too, because they don't want new mother. Even though later they support her, and decide to teach their father to become a "real" father, and "husband" to Willow. (or like the blurb said, how sweet surrender can be).I'm happy my sleepless night is paid well :).This is my first book by Teresa Medeiros and definitely not the last. When it comes to Historical Romance, I always picky, since some theme of that genre are bothering me. Like infidelity, or rape. I don't like them all. That's why I never read Johanna Lindsey, that's why I dislike Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas. Just one historical author who I adore, and thats Lisa Kleypas. Even I found Bridgerton's Julia Quinn is a little boring for me. But now I'm glad to find another Historical Romance book which I enjoyed. Teresa Medeiros's writing is flowing, easy to read, funny, with some heartbreaking moment. Some readers may find they don't like hero who have a bastard or a widower and have so many children. We will think some of Bannor's children are bastards. But when the story goes, we know that the children not his bastards. Just another people's child who Bannor took to his home. Because he doesn't want them to have same fate with him, to be abandoned by his father and live poor. I love Willow strength too, even she always live tormented at her home, she still face it. Another characters I like are Bannor's children. They all naughty, but not like Willow's step-sibling who have a mean bone. They do that because they want Bannor to care for them, to watch them and love them like a real father. Why I don't give this full 5 stars, maybe because I found the "love scene" is too flowery for me, lol. I think I'm too much read erotica, or PNR. Which sex scene always told directly, hot and so steamy *grin sheepisly*. And I found my self snort and giggling when read the sex scene at this book. But not that bad, just a "little tame" to my preference, LMAO!My favorite quote of this book is by Fiona, Bannor's house servant and caretaker.: Love isn't a burst o' trumpets and flock o' doves descendin' out o' the heavens to roost on yer heads. Tis' sharin' a cup o' tea by the hearth of cold winter's night. Tis' the look in yer husband's eyes when ye lay yer first child in his arms. Tis' the ache in yer heart when ye watch the light in his eyes dim fer the last time and know a part o' ye has gone out o' this world with him If you love Historical Romance which took place at Tudor era, make sure to include Teresa Medeiros's book at your list :)
Sir Bannor the Bold, a rough-hewn warrior who battled the French dauntlessly for 14 years. But Bannor's secret is that he is truly terrified of his 12 (count 'em, 12) motherless children who have run wild for years, tormenting all of the residents of his keep. At his wit's end (and barricaded in a tower), the exhausted lord dispatches his man to find a new wife to manage his brood, hopefully without adding to it!!! Bannor seeks a wife who is everything his children are not--quiet, biddable, and well-behaved. And preferably "some maternal, bovine creature who will prove to be no temptation to my appetites," he specifies. To his extreme suprise, he finds himself wed by proxy to Lady Willow Mallory, a slender, raven-haired beauty who has been the unpaid and unappreciated nursemaid to her numerous step- and half-siblings for most of her life. From the beginning, Bannor and Willow struggle to forge a relationship, first with his estranged offspring and finally with each other. By the time he learns that love isn't a sickness of the heart, Bannor must rescue Willow from the clutches of her twisted step brother.This started out slow but really grew on me. I spent the majority of this book insistent that Bannor did not deserve the good fortune that brought him Willow. I really really liked her character. I think i found the beginning slow simply because I was annoyed at Bannor for his treatment, of rather non treatment of Willow while his children tormented her with the hopes of driving her away. As the story progresses "bastard" children are randomly dropped off at the castle gates, the last child that is dropped off with claims to being Bannor's, makes an untimely arrival right in the middle of dinner and right in front of Willow! Of course she wants to leave Bannor she's embarrassed and mortified the entire castle population has seen what just happened.... What changed my mind about this story and Bannor, and what really made me love this story, was Bannor's story. Bannor was born on the wrong side of the blanket and raised by his mother untill she could no longer care for him, she did everything for her child gave him everything that she had, even the food out of her mouth. When she was no longer able to feed her son she resorted to prostitution and when that still wasn't enough she made the trip to Bannor's father's castle (the same castle that Bannor later steals from his half brother) When they make it to the castle his mother asks his father to take Bannor because she can no longer feed and shelter him. Bannor's father is a jerk and turns the two of them out into the snow, they are cauht in a blizzard and Bannor's mother dies right there in a field in the middle of a blizzard right infront of her son. Bannor grows up to be a great knight, wins the kings favor and a title, and takes his fathers holdings from his half brother. When Bannor becomes lord of the castle a woman in the near by village is forced, for the well being of her child, to give up her little girl and she puts the child at the castle gates to be found. Bannor takes the child in and finds the mother, he promises that mother that he will raise her child as his own and no one not even the child will ever know the truth. He also promises that he will never turn away a child left at his gates, and he doesn't. Even though a child is dropped off right in front of Willow and she wants to leave Bannor he keeps his word and claims the child! Willow of course finds out the truth from the woman in the village, she's able to see Bannor for who he is and why. There are many more parts to this book but this part, Bannor's story, is what made me love this book!
What do You think about Charming The Prince (1999)?
A sweet tale. Willow, the daughter of an improvised baron whom always coveted her father's love, but then she accepted her fate as the eldest daughter cum appointed governess to her step siblings. Sir Hollis found her on his search for his lordship, Lord Bannor, the protagonist whom sired more off springs than he intended to. Despite Sir Hollis's first impression, he was disappointed to find Willow to be a beautiful woman since Bannor wanted a plain lady who wouldn't tempt him and would mother his brood. Willow trying her best to escape the invisible trap, agreed to marry Lord Bannor even though she hadn't the opportunity to take a look at him. And their adventures began.I particularly like the scenes:1. The children playing tricks and Bannor cowering from them, but I especially like when they started a war with Willow and the children on one side and Bannor & his army on the other or the fact that Bannor outsmarted them on their demands especially on taking a bath once a month. 2. Willow's spirit still unbroken despite after revelation that she's the step mom for 10 children, even includes her attempt in coaxing her husband to bed her.3. Bannor is one kind hearted guy, even though he sired so many children and with his two wives buried before him.Truly a sweet tale especially when children are involved in it
—Cik Aini
Leí una reseña muy positiva del libro calificándolo de divertido y fresco y decidí leerlo. La verdad es que sí me ha entretenido pero la «gracia» de este libro es demasiado evidente y facilona, yo prefiero el humor cuando es irónico y no tan evidente. Es como una comedia con personajes demasiado evidentes y poco complejos, así que no me ha aportado mucho y ha sido menos de lo que esperaba. Teresa Medeiros no me disgusta pero no termina de encantarme con sus novelas, siempre le falta ir un paso más allá, hacerlas más complejas.
—Galena Sanz
Willow, Lady of Bedlington, wanted a mother more than anything else. She was ecstatic when her father brought a bride, Blanche, home but much less so when said bride brought five children that claimed her father as their own while Willow was pushed aside. Twice widowed Bannor the Bold was a legend equally for his skill as a warrior, his prowess at seduction and his prolific potentcy. Now that he's retired from battle he's forced to provide parenting to his expanding and undisciplined brood of ten children.As time passes Willow not only doesn't get the mother she wanted she ends up being mother to her five step-siblings that came with Blanche and the four new half-siblings. Blanche was successful in her bid to whittle Willow's self esteem away and Willow fears she will never have a prince of her own and that she's doomed to caring for them through her old age. Bannor decides his children need a mother and sends his trusted second as his proxy to select and marry a woman to serve the purpose. The second selects Willow. At their meeting Bannor rejects Willow as too attractive and appealing and allows his children to become even more unruly in an effort to drive Willow reject Bannor and his brood. Willow's stepsister and stepmother decide Bannor is too handsome and wealthy for Willow. The stepsister and plots with her brother to break Willows marriage so she can have Willow's husband and Willow and her stepbrother can be together. While the ending seemed to be rushed, I enjoyed the characters and the small smiles they gave me in this surprisingly fast read.
—PepperP0t
