Disaster follows Fiona wherever she goes, so it’s no surprise when a waltz with Tyrell goes completely awry during his welcome home party. Everyone in town thinks Fiona is cursed, giving her nicknames like the Duchess of Disaster and Lady Fiasco. Resigned to her reputation, Fiona strives to lay low and stay out of the way during public events. Unfortunately, Tyrell remembers Fiona from when they were children and chooses her to be his dance partner.Calling upon Fiona the following morning, Tyrell is thrown off his guard by Fiona’s carefree behavior. Feeling more than he had anticipated, he accuses Fiona of baiting him and runs off. Fortunately for the humiliated Fiona, her aunt comes to visit and take her off of her step-mother’s hands. By an odd turn of events, Tyrell and Fiona manage to keep running into one another during Fiona's travels. Unfortunately for Fiona, who hasn’t quite worked out her feelings for Tyrell, her disastrous luck seems to follow her everywhere as well. As if things can’t get worse, the incidents surrounding Fiona are becoming more dangerous, and even deadly.Lady Fiasco is a fairly cookie cutter-style historical romance- a man and woman meet, fall for each other, dramatically deny their feelings, something drastic happens, and they both acknowledge their feelings. Unlike many romance novels which can merit a R rating, this one can reasonably be rated PG, or even G. It was one of the tamest romance novels I’ve ever read! In fact, the only thing they did was kiss!The writing was good- it was nothing profound, but it had no errors or typos. I did, however, notice some overuse of the word “ain’t”, which I’m inclined to believe wasn’t a common vocabulary word among English gentry. According to Merriam-Webster the term is, “widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the habitual speech of the less educated.” I doubt many gentlemen were in the habit of using "common" vocabulary.The only glaringly irritating aspect of the book was that the characters were frustratingly underdeveloped. On multiple occasions, Tyrell blames his inner turmoil on the war in Spain. He tells Fiona he’ll never be leg shackled, and then in his thoughts he remarks upon the war. Unfortunately, he never explains what happened in Spain. Did he have a Spanish woman who was killed? Did he just see too much death? Who knows! The author makes quite a few assertions throughout the book without ever explaining the reasoning behind them.This book was good for a nice light read. It’s definitely not a literary classic, but it passes the time and has a cute story. The trouble that Fiona constantly finds herself in is certainly amusing. Sure, the outcome is a tad predictable, but what romance isn’t? If you’re looking for a nice, short rainy day book, Lady Fiasco fits the bill!
Lady Fiasco is the first in a series of companion books. I did not read these in order. I read book 2, Mistaken Kiss first. Book 3, Cut From the Same Cloth, I read third. Out of the three this one was the one I liked the least. The series features Aunt Honore in all three books. In each book she "helps" along the romantic relationship of one of her nieces or nephews. I felt like she was a little inconsistent throughout the books. In this book she is pretty outrageous and some of the things she did would have been pretty shocking for the time period. In book two she just seems like a meddlesome busybody and was not featured nearly as much, and in book three she schemes but is not nearly as outrageous as she was in book one and I liked her the most in that one. This is a humorous regency romance, but for the most part the humor fell flat in this one. I thought Mistaken Kiss was the most humorous of the three and that one is my favorite. A couple of things that annoyed me about this book where the foot stamping the main character does several times and the aunt and love interest keeping something from the main character that they could have let her in on. As far as the foot stamping goes, I didn't notice it so much in the other two books, although I think it happened once or twice. I have a hard time picturing a grown woman stamping her foot like a little girl when shes upset. It's a childish and unattractive thing for a grown woman to do. I don't know if there will be more books in the series, but for the most part I've really enjoyed the ones I've read. They have been a fun diversion.
What do You think about Lady Fiasco (2013)?
I normally read series in order, but this time I went off reviews and started with a later book - I found that good advice. I liked this one much less than the other I've read so far. Aunt Honore is more than just notorious here - she's scandalous. Her soiree was just a bit too much for me. In the later book, she's feisty and unconventional, but not crude. I found myself really being turned off by several episodes. I would not classify this as a 'clean' romance because of them, even though it had nothing to do with the actual couple's interactions.The romance was also just all right. If the couple didn't have a history of knowing each other since childhood, it would have been a terrible case of instalove. There wasn't really any development of their feelings for each other. It was just an on switch and then a lot of running away and denial in between kisses. I didn't find their relationship very satisfying, especially when the main character was being a jerk whenever he wasn't kissing the girl.
—Allison
This was a free read and so I didn't expect much. But it was such a fun read! Fiona grew up wild after her mother died until her father remarried. Unfortunately the new wife is cruel in a passive aggressive way and her daughter is just plain mean and selfish. She has encouraged everyone to believe that Fiona is cursed and now even Fiona believes it. When Tyrel, a neighbour who was kind to her when she was young, returns from the war, she is the only thing that tempts him to smile. He believes that after the horrors of war, he has no heart to share, but somehow just being near Fiona makes him feel like kissing her. This is a pretty PG book, so kissing is it, but they are such sweetly romantic kisses, that you don't mind. The story livens up with the return of Fiona's estranged and quite eccentric aunt, Lady Alameda. Her aunt's behavior is constantly changing with what seems to her, little rhyme or reason, but you as the reader soon discern a method to her madness. I loved that the author doesn't spell everything out and allows her characters and their actions to speak for themselves. The ending was rather abrupt, which would normally disappoint me, but in this case it was just perfect!
—Cheesecake
I really liked this story and it had me laughing out loud more than once. Fiona wasn't really the disaster that people made her out to be but there were some interesting mishaps just the same. She often was just the scapegoat for others. Their superstitious "fears" often even caused some of the accidents. No matter how hard Tyrell, (Lord Wesmont) tried, he just couldn't forget Fiona. Its not just because of their history of knowing each other as children either. He doesn't want to want her or get married to anyone. But she keeps getting under his guard no matter how distant he tries to remain. Fiona has loved him for years, but feels like she can't find her balance with him. One minute he is passionate towards her and the next he's pushing her away. I liked how unque and free loving Fiona is even though she's not doing so well being contrained by society's rules. Her Aunt Honore, is really something else. She really doesn't care to much about society rules, and gets away with a lot. Aunt Honore and Tyrell are a handful of people who don't believe in the "jinx" attitude that people have towards Fiona. There was a seondary plot going on when it came to Aunt Honore's stepson. Not too hard to figure out but watch out for when Honore finds out. There is of course a HEA for Fiona but there will be some hoops that need to be jumped through first.
—Linda Walters
