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A review by taisie22
The Designs of Lord Randolph Cavanaugh by Stephanie Laurens
3.0
Lord Rand Cavanaugh stops by the Throgmorton estate to check on the progress of an invention he's invested in. He arrives just as the steam engine blows up and must stay to ensure the inventor William John Throgmorton meets the deadline for an exhibition. However, William John's sister Felicia promises to make his stay enjoyable.
I read The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh when it came out and enjoyed it very much. This is sort of the next book though it is the first in this series. I find that Ms. Laurens can be hit or miss for me, and this book was one of the misses. I enjoyed the technical parts about the inventions and the design of the steam engine though I thought there was too much of it.
But this is supposed to be a romance. Felicia and Rand barely talk, share a few kisses, then jump into bed. They think vaguely that they'll need to speak to each other about their future at some point after the machine has been exhibited, but it's pretty bland. When there's no real passion happening, Ms. Laurens can venture into purple prose territory during the sex scenes in order to show there is some connection. She does that here during the one sex scene. And not that I need to have a lot of sex scenes, but here she basically bypasses the rest with a passing reference which just adds to the disconnection between Felicia and Rand.
This may be the first romance I've ever read where the h/h don't even say 'I love you' to each other. There's one declaration which is more of 'I admire you so you must be the one for me forever'. I found that pretty strange.
The writing is good as always with Ms. Laurens' books, but there did seem to be a lot of head-hopping. I'm fine with that between the h/h, but here it was all the characters and was sometimes confusing. Bonus: Ryder and Mary show up so there's that.
Not one of her best in my opinion.
I read The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh when it came out and enjoyed it very much. This is sort of the next book though it is the first in this series. I find that Ms. Laurens can be hit or miss for me, and this book was one of the misses. I enjoyed the technical parts about the inventions and the design of the steam engine though I thought there was too much of it.
But this is supposed to be a romance. Felicia and Rand barely talk, share a few kisses, then jump into bed. They think vaguely that they'll need to speak to each other about their future at some point after the machine has been exhibited, but it's pretty bland. When there's no real passion happening, Ms. Laurens can venture into purple prose territory during the sex scenes in order to show there is some connection. She does that here during the one sex scene. And not that I need to have a lot of sex scenes, but here she basically bypasses the rest with a passing reference which just adds to the disconnection between Felicia and Rand.
This may be the first romance I've ever read where the h/h don't even say 'I love you' to each other. There's one declaration which is more of 'I admire you so you must be the one for me forever'. I found that pretty strange.
The writing is good as always with Ms. Laurens' books, but there did seem to be a lot of head-hopping. I'm fine with that between the h/h, but here it was all the characters and was sometimes confusing. Bonus: Ryder and Mary show up so there's that.
Not one of her best in my opinion.