Julie Anne Long has a talent for pairing two unlikely characters who just happen to be perfect for each other. And I like that. I like it a lot.Though you know how authors have their writing quirks? All authors have them, I think, myself included. Well, as far as I can tell, the Pennyroyal Green heroes have cocks that are always "so hard it hurt" when it's pushed against the woman's -- dare I say it? I dare -- hungry notch.(Side note: hungry notch is probably my new favorite phrase, though I've since used it to describe what happens when your boobs aren't big enough to catch food particles that fall, so it lands in your crotch instead. I know you'll appreciate that image.)Anyway. Other than cocks so hard they hurt (for both of the characters, I imagine), this latest Pennyroyal Green book was just as good as the others. I'm both fascinated and annoyed with the way each book expands on the love (or love lost?) between Lyon and Olivia because I'm dying to see their romance.But as for Jules and Phoebe, they had a lovely story, complete with Jules chasing pussy (in both senses of the word), though him and the cat were pretty damn priceless. In some ways, their romance was rather... standard... for the genre, but I never once felt that way while reading, which is likely because there's always so much emotion packed into a single book.One, very evil, thing was that this books starts at the end, six weeks ahead of where the story begins. It's maddening, until I forgot about, then remembered it about halfway through and wondered how it came to be. I'm of two minds for this. One, it's a good way to keep the reader reading, but it encourages the reader to skip ahead (or in my case read ridiculously fast enough it borders uncomfortably close to skimming) and that means missing out on the details.I was still quite satisfied at the end, though. $7 down the drain, I did not finish this book and unfortunately did not cancel it fast enough to receive my money back. I picked up this book because of the glorious reviews but I am 100% sure now that the reviewers were paid to give a 5 star reviews.The writing is horrible, I know a few high school kids that can write better, the sentences were 3 words each and it felt so cut up and amateurish that I could not stand it.The heroine is a school teacher who follows up on the gossip about the ohh so very bad marquess. The heroine originally is presented as a nice and clever character however as we discover more of her through her thoughts and actions she is spiteful, jealous and mean, she doesn't like any of the females in the book, as far as I was able to bear reading it. She goes to visit a girlfriend and she doesn't like anything about her, she criticized some of the girls in the school earlier, I don't like to read about characters that have such thought process. The female lead can read 5 languages and her stupid friends can't manage even though she tutored them. give me a break! The hero is neither here nor there the banter was too childish for words and the heroine looked to be baiting him to do her in my opinion, even though she is so not wanting to. Bulshit on top of bulshit.Conclusion: SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!!! There are may wonderful historical romance books out there but this is not one of them
What do You think about Conquistare Un Marchese (2013)?
I admit it: I am hooked on Julie Anne Long. :-)
—grace
I liked but didn't LOVE this story.
—Karinahoffman
