Review: The Hidden Heiress by Juliet Moore
February 16, 2012
Filed under Book Review
Tags: Amazon Digital Services, book-review, Juliet Moore, Mystery, novella, Reading, Romance novels, three quills, victorian-romance
Title: The Hidden Heiress
Author: Juliet Moore
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services?
Format: Kindle ($.99 on Amazon)
Pages: ? (It says 70,000 words, but it is actually a lot shorter – novella length)
Release Date: October/November 2011
Genre: Romance – Victorian/Historical
Available at: Amazon
Summary: When Isabel Darton finds herself on the business end of a murder plot, she goes into hiding as a governess for a wealthy family in London until she can determine who is trying to assassinate her.
Her new employers have a difficult daughter who has run off all the previous governesses. As a servant of the family, Isabel soon finds that a life of servitude isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Her employers see only her lower station, even though they are forced to include her in some of their social events to avoid unlucky numbers.
Marshall Templeton is a second son, the brother of Isabel’s employer, with a promising political career. As a member of Parliament, his interest in a governess as anything other than a passing fancy is frowned upon in his social circles. The problem is Marshall just can’t get Isabel out of his mind.
Review: I enjoyed this book, though I did like Punish Me with Roses better. The characters were well-developed and there was a very intriguing conflict. I would have liked to see more of the mystery-solving in this one. Isabel does do a little digging, but for the most part she waited for the answers to fall into her lap. Though to be fair, she did have her hands full with the troubled girl as well as two men who couldn’t seem to take no for an answer.
Recommendation: I like Juliet Moore’s story lines. She does a good job drawing the reader into her character’s lives. This wasn’t my favorite of the two books I’ve read, but I do think it’s worth recommending to others. It gets your heart racing in several places. And there are parts you’ll want to re-read. The love story was complete, but there were a few holes in the mystery. For this reason, I give three quills to The Hidden Heiress:
Review: Punish Me with Roses by Juliet Moore
December 29, 2011
Filed under Book Review
Tags: Amazon Digital Services, book-review, four-quills, Juliet Moore, Reading, Romance novels, victorian-romance
Title: Punish Me with Roses
Author: Juliet Moore
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services?
Format: Kindle
Pages: 184
Release Date: October 15, 2011
Genre: Romance – Victorian/Historical
Available at: Amazon
Summary: When her arrogant and politically ambitious cousin and his valet are found dead in their rooms, Victoria Clavering becomes the number one suspect in their murders, even in her own mind. She escapes to Cornwall to visit an uncle she has never met, unaware that she is running right into the clutches of the suspicious relatives of the valet who are out to prove she committed the crimes.
One of these relatives is Alexander Trevelyn, whose job it is to earn her trust and induce her confession. He gets more than he bargains for however, when he finds Victoria is not the cold-hearted greedy woman he was hoping to discover.
Inexplicably drawn together, Victoria and Alexander undertake to solve the many mysteries surrounding her uncle’s life and the deaths of Victoria’s cousin and his valet, all the while falling head over heels for each other.
Review: When I selected this book to read, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, since I have never read any of Juliet Moore’s work before. Many of her Amazon reviews spoke of editing so bad it was impossible to finish the book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case at all. Were there things missed in editing? Yes. But no more than any other book I’ve seen. All of them were easily figured out as you were reading.
As for the style, I loved the writer’s easy flow of writing. Something about her writing, that je ne se quois, made me not want to put this down. Just enough detail to set the scene, but nothing that distracted me from the story itself. The characters were believable and easy for me to connect to. The heat level is listed as subtle and it was that, though maybe on the sweet side of subtle. All the loose ends of the plot came together at the end.
With that being said, although the resolution was complete and the story ended happily, it wasn’t quite as well developed as I was hoping; it seemed to end too abruptly. But that would be my only complaint of the entire novel. Remarkably well conceived and written.
Recommendation: I would definitely read more from this author. Her writing style is intriguing and her story was compelling. In fact, I’ve already downloaded Hidden Heiress for my next read. To Punish Me with Roses, I give a four quill rating:
Punish Me with Roses by Juliet Moore is a must-read. You won’t want to put it down.
