Reviews

And Then She Fell by Stephanie Laurens

wyvernfriend's review against another edition

3.0

She helps women escape mis-matches, enough that she's been called "The Matchbreaker" but now she's helping James Glossup find a partner in order to inherit, and to add to the mess, someone apparently wants Henrietta dead.
 
Entertaining and fun with a smidge of goddess-worship.

bangalee57's review against another edition

3.0

Pretty light on the steamy scenes, which was nice actually because I could read at work without blushing too much. The stories she comes up with in the same society are creative. A candy rating (on a scale of Lima beans to pót de creme)

bookitchewie's review against another edition

4.0

I don't read a ton of Regency romance, but this was fresh and new. Henrietta and James had good chemistry and I loved the premise. Trying to find a match for James gave them lots of opportunity for the main characters to interact and build a bond.

When it started getting steamy about halfway in, I was fully prepared for a  third-act breakup, so a murder mystery with a kidnapping plot and Henrietta saving the day was a welcome surprise

Would definitely recommend this one.

Tropes:

rivals to lovers (light), matchmaker becomes the matched (heavy), FMC in physical danger so MNC has to keep throwing himself at her to save her (medium)

_delanee8_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

megs_k's review against another edition

2.0

She was never one to do things by halves. ~ Stephanie Laurens

brandypainter's review against another edition

3.0

Why am I still reading this series? I'm not really sure. It's super repetitive and they tend to the overwrought but I can't help myself (especially when I'm looking for something that feels familiar). So there you go. I actually really liked both Henrietta and James (though I've always liked James). There's nothing amazing about the plot, but I'm not going to be able to rest until I finish this series probably though obviously it's taking me a long time due to not caring as much as I did when it first started. (Which was when I was in college. Just for perspective.)

bookloverchelle's review against another edition

4.0

Stephanie Laurens is one of my absolute favorite historical romance authors, if not my favorite. Her Cynster series is something I’ll recommend time and time again because she just has a quality to her love stories that I love to share with other readers. This series has been going strong for 15 years and with such an engaging family, I’d hate to ever see it end. To any new readers, this book may not be the best place to start. Ms. Laurens does a very good job of introducing her characters but there are so many secondary characters from earlier books that it may be either confusing or hard to enjoy if you don’t know how they fit in. The handy family tree at the front of the book does help, though. Over the years Henrietta Cynster has had the uncanny ability to judge the connection between other couples, whether they would be a love match or not. But when her help ends up putting an end to a possible engagement, James is not happy. Henrietta feels that helping her brother’s best friend find his match is the only way to appease him. Before long Henrietta and James are both realizing that maybe their perfect match was right before them all along. When a series of accidents put Henrietta’s life in danger James isn’t ready to lose the woman he has just found. And you can’t solve a mystery without the Cynsters so of course the whole family gets involved and I just love it! A combination of a long standing series that I love and the tropes of best friend’s little sister and marriage of convenience make this a fun, memorable novel. I’m very excited for Mary’s story that comes next.

balletbookworm's review against another edition

4.0

Not quite sure how I feel about it. It buzzes right along - Henrietta and James suffer nearly all the accidents previously suffered by Cynster heroes and heroines (no attempted poisonings, though) so there is rarely a dull moment. The pendant bit is still a bit strange but its a fixture part of the plot. Laurens definitely pulled back on the level of description in the love scenes which made for a nice change of pace.

Nearly every Laurens H/h couple puts in an appearance in some way - Bastion Club, Cynster, Barnaby Adair. The only real laggards are Chillingworth and Francesca (Cynster 7) and Roscoe and Miranda (The Lady Risks All). A family reunion as it were. Also a nice lead-in for Mary's book - The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh - in the epilogue.

seeinghowitgoes's review against another edition

2.0

Somewhat clumsy pacing ruined a lot of the suspense in this latest adventure of the Cynster family. With a family tree so long it required 4 pages of diagrams to illustrate the connections, I felt utterly overwhelmed with all the reappearance of characters (all of whom I'm sure I've read the connecting novels to), and felt a connection to almost none of them.

With much of the romantic tension out of the way 50% into the novel, there was only a flimsy murder plot carrying the rest of the book through.

jaga119's review against another edition

2.0

What a boring, emotionless and disappointing story. There wasn't a single point of conflict between the heroes, they were so sensible and sure of their feelings, it wasn't at all what I came to expect from books by Laurens. And not what I wanted to read. It was also actually a contemporary story - the heroine wasn't thinking or acting the way she would if it was really a historical.

And did Laurens really have to bring ALL the pairs from her previous books into this one? I didn;t even try to keep track who was who amongst those I didn't read about or didn;t remember well.