Seducing Mr. Knightly by Maya Rodale

Annabelle Swift, the fourth writing girl from Maya Rodale’s Writing Girls series, never much attracted my notice. Quiet, shy, and easily overlooked, Annabelle did not strike me as having much potential to be the heroine of a sassy or steamy romance like her counterparts, fiery Julianna, daring Eliza or confident Sophie. Having read and loved the first three novels in the series, I wondered what kind of romance would befall Annabelle. She’s been in love with the newspaper’s owner, Derek Knightly, but that love, so far in the series, had only been expressed in a sigh upon his entrance to the weekly staff meeting. How would Annabelle seduce Mr. Knightly? I found I very much wanted to know.

Mr. Knightly, Annabelle’s employer and the object of her affections is a hard and unscrupulous man. He does not notice her as a woman or writer. He doesn’t even read her column, Dear Annabelle, in which Annabelle gives love and etiquette advice to the newspaper’s readers. Something drastic would have to happen, I thought, for that to change. Annabelle seducing Mr. Knightly seemed tantamount to the seduction of a lion by a mouse. But Annabelle, lovesick and feeling near to death with being sick from love, takes a desperate measure and instead of giving advice in her column, turns to London with a question of her own: “For the past few years I have loved a man from afar, and I fear he has taken no notice of me at all. I know not how to attract his attention and affection. Dear readers, please advise!”

Knightly expects that Annabelle is the last person in London to cause trouble, but as Annabelle discards her old habits by the advice of her readers, he soon learns to think otherwise. Annabelle lowers her bodice, buys herself new silken underthings, learns how to gaze at a man in a sultry fashion, practices fainting, climbs trees, and dares to keep going in her quest for love no matter how ridiculous, silly, or embarrassing it gets. With baited breath, I (and the rest of London) followed the progress of Annabelle’s attempts to gain Knightly’s attention, and fell completely in love.

“That was one amazing woman, sitting there, making herself invisible. She was kind, beautiful, generous, daring and funny. She possessed the courage to ask for help and to share her triumphs and embarrassments with the whole city. She possessed the strength to do the right thing even when it was the hard thing.”

A character like Annabelle is exactly why I love romance novels. Romances open up a possibility for grand gestures, self expression, and crazy daring in love which in real life most of us could only dream about. There is room, in romances, for women to be everything and anything they want to be, and they are always, always loved, appreciated, and accepted for it. Watching Annabelle put her heart on the line and go all the way for what she wants reminded me that getting hurt once in a while (as when Knightly asks her if she has something in her eye when she throws him a particularly seductive gaze) can be worth the risk in the long run, if one but has the courage to laugh, as Annabelle does over the pages of the newspaper: “...this led to a mortifying disaster. Rather than succumb to the fervor in my gaze, more than one person inquired if I had something stuck in my eye.”

Maya Rodale, I am a fan!

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Avoiding the Banal: How the Duke Fell in Love with His Maid

Sebastian Digby, the hero of Maya Rodale’s The Tattooed Duke, refuses to adopt the shackling conventions of Nineteenth-Century British society. He had much rather follow his heart, explore the world and experience all sorts of adventures. Life, however, has a tendency to catch up with those who try to elude its responsibilities, as he discovers when summoned back home from Tahiti to assume his duties as the Duke of Wycliff.

Wycliff may now be a duke, but more than that he is a sensation in British Society -- the kind of sensation no one wants attached to himself or herself. Not only is he rumored to have engaged in cannibalism and to have spent an entire night in a harem, he is now one of the Wicked Wycliffs, the spendthrift playboy dukes who tend to play around with their maids. No one doubts that this Wycliff will be just the same.

Eliza, a Writing Girl for a yellow newspaper, is sent to write a series of articles on the sensational new duke. Disguised as a maid, she falls in love with Wycliff even as she writes columns that reveal all of his secrets to the ever-more-shocked world. Wycliff and Eliza betray each other as they try to find a balance between their individual hopes and dreams and this new reality in which another human being suddenly has claims on their future. Does that sounds ordinary to you?

And yet nothing about this novel is banal. Not even the most minor character is what he or she seems. Wycliff resists falling into the Wicked Wycliff tradition while keeping his long hair and solitary earring, refusing to wear a necktie and proudly acknowledging his tattoos. Eliza ties herself in knots trying to redeem the duke while keeping her job at the crowd-pleaser, scandal-mongering newspaper. And the whirlwind begins: deception, lies, a secret locked room, an adventurous expedition to a legendary city, bigamy, tea laced with whiskey, a one-armed man whose second arm is in perfect working order, a child born out of wedlock, a  lady who is Hades’ Own Harpy, and of course loyalty and love.

Fabulous book! I loved the Henry Fielding-styled subtitles to the chapters (Fielding is also Eliza’s last name) and the many allusions to eighteenth-century British novels. And (Spoiler Warning!) the best part last: the novel ends with the most extraordinary marriage proposal:

...her beauty left him speechless. Of all the sunrises and sunsets he’d seen, of all the sublime natural spectacles and stunning sights he’d witnessed on his travels, nothing compared to Eliza emerging from the bath.

    Silently, he dropped to one knee.
    “Wycliff?” She said, lifting one brow questioningly. She glanced around for a towel. She looked at him on bended knee before her. Little rivulets of water trickled down her soft, pale skin. In that instant he was jealous of a mere droplet of water.
    “Will you marry me, Eliza?”

Enchanting.