I’ve read our upcoming review of The Reluctant Countess–we liked it! Our reviewer calls it charming with electric chemistry between the leads. I’m planning to read it soon.
When James is good, she’s very very good. I love several of her works including Three Weeks with Lady X–Caz gave it a DIK–This Duchess of Mine, and (unlike our reviewer) A Duke of Her Own. James, a tenured Shakespeare professor, loves to play with language and she mines human behavior in rewarding and often unexpected ways. When her books don’t work for me, it’s because the plots are too outlandish, the characters too much, or the story too trite.
What do you think about James? Do you plan to read The Reluctant Countess? If you love her, why and what’s your favorite work of hers? If she’s not for you, why not?
You’re right when you say
But the other half of that (almost quote) is
And that’s true, too. (Once Upon a Tower, The Ugly Duchess.) I’ve always found her to be hit and miss, and gave up reading her stuff a few years back after several weak books in a row.
In the last few books of hers I read, I got a distinct sense of an author who was telling me “look how clever I am”, and from some of the things I’ve read about her, she seems not to have the highest opinion of the romance genre. (She’s not the only romance author I’ve got that impression of, tbh.)
I dunno. I’ve met her and talked with her in depth a couple of times. I think she loves the genre but has high expectations for it. She’s actually always struck me as someone who thinks romance and its readers can represent the best of what genre fiction offers AND I think she’s far less interested in fame and, perhaps reader love, than many other authors.
I will also say that unlike several of her contemporaries, Eloisa did not trash AAR during the blowup of RWA and the kerfuffle around the last Top 100 poll. She is resolutely not part of the destructive wing of cancel culture unlike…..
I’ve only read one book by Eloisa James. It was many years ago and I believe it was her first book, or one of her first. I remember reading a lot of rave reviews for the book and she was getting a lot of buzz as an exciting new author, so I decided to try it. I hated the book, and I have not picked up anything by her since. I know it could have been me, the mood I’m in and what’s going on in my life definitely affect how I react to a book. I just remember being very unimpressed. One day maybe I’ll try her again, but it may be a while since my tbr pile is currently close to 400 books deep and I’m working my way through backlists of other authors that I do enjoy. I’ve hated books by other authors before and came to love them later when I gave them a second chance, so who knows.
I read her first one, and I remember that there was a kerfuffle because she got a lot of Regency-era details wrong. (For example, she had them using pajamas before the word was introduced to England.) She learned from that and got the errors fixed before the paperback release. (I reviewed the paperback release for AAR.)
Her books started to get better reviews from us after that — but I think it wasn’t just the accuracy that she worked on. She really became a part of the romance genre. Compare that to another author who had a similar kerfuffle at about the same time — the other author left historical romance after a few books, moving on to thrillers and later to YA.
I really like her new book, The Reluctant Countess, and gave it 5 stars. I could really feel the love between Giles and Yasmin. It moved into the top three of my favorite books by Eloisa James, the others being My American Duchess (loved the pineapples) and When Beauty Tamed the Beast. I think I’ve read all of the author’s books and I especially enjoy her humor and witty banter.
My introduction to Eloisa James was Much Ado About You, which remains one of my favorite books. I also loved the Desperate Duchesses series and a number of other books. (A large cast of characters really appeals to me, especially when it’s possible to tell them apart.)The more recent ones, not so much. The only thing I really liked about My American Duchess was the pineapples. But, being ever optimistic, I look forward to reading The Reluctant Countess.
I wrote my basic thoughts about Eloisa James in my comment on the review of Say Yes to the Duke:
“Sometimes James has much older heroes (in their 30s) with very young heroines (late teens), an age differential that has never appealed to me, although YMMV. Sometimes I find her secondary characters much more appealing than her primary ones (e.g., in Duchess in Love I cared way more about Esme and Sebastian than I ever did about Cam and Gina). But she’s smart and funny and is very good at portraying female friendships and conversation so I’m always hopeful when a new book of hers appears.”
As stated above, I often care more for her secondary characters than the main ones. In Taming the Duke, I searched for passages about the duke’s brother, Gabe, and his lady love, Miss Pythian-Adams. I never warmed up to Imogen, the heroine, but had loved Miss P-A from when we first met her in an earlier book when she seemed to be a prissy bluestocking but was only trying to drive away her suitor by constantly quoting Shakespeare at him. James is so knowledgeable about English literature she can incorporate this knowledge into her plot and characters in a way that is organic rather than pedantic. As James herself says on her website: “Miss Pythian-Adams is kind of a joke on myself. After teaching Shakespeare for ten years, I have managed to memorize a great deal of verse without trying. There are moments when I have to restrain myself from boring everyone by dropping a particularly great bit of poetry into a conversation just because it occurred to me. So Miss Pythian-Adams’s technique of getting rid of her unwanted fiancé by quoting poetry at him seems a natural!” How could you not love an author who is so self-aware and able to satirize herself so beautifully? Perhaps it’s not surprising that with an author who is so prolific I just don’t love all her books.
I read a few of her romances from the Duchess series years and years ago. I remember thinking that her writing was light and escapist but none of the characters seemed to be of their time. They all seemed like 21st century transplants to me. I think authors like KJ Charles or Courtney Milan are better at having their characters hold progressive views about sex that are believably the progressive views that someone in that time period would come to hold based on their experiences/social standing/gender etc. Her characters seemed like they had wandered out of a contemporary romcom.
I’ve read one of her books about twenty years ago and too had the feeling she writes about modern people, especially women, in period costumes. I think I liked one or two of her later books but don’t remember the titels. Her books often end up in the DNF category even if she has a very fine writing style in contrast to many other authors.
After reading this blog and these posts, I’ve realized I should get back into reading Eloisa James. 🙂 I have some of the books, but I’m way behind…
Also, I earned some Amazon points by ordering a couple of the ones I didn’t have through our links. 🙂
For the most part I enjoy her books, but a few of the Wilde books, and her last one, suffer from giving too much time to previous or secondary characters, especially when we get entire chapters that have nothing to do with moving the romance along. I enjoy her writing and when the romance is good, it’s good, but I think sometimes it really suffers when she’s clearly more interested in developing the supporting characters or setting up a new series than the main story.
I used to pre-order her books, but I’ve moved towards sampling first. Unfortunately this has been the case with a few of my auto-buys’ last few books…
The Wilde series was pretty uneven. It is also my impression that she got tired of it or something. The fact that Horatius totally disappeared came across to me as a setup for a future story — maybe he really is dead, maybe he survived but did die, maybe he reappears and there is chaos. For me, Horatius is a really irritating loose end. I get that that mirrors the family’s angst, but I could do without the aggravation.
I so agree. She’s violated Chekhov’s Gun rule big time with this and it really irks me!
Eloisa James skates past a lot of the gate-keeping I do when selecting books. In fact, I did not even try reading her until she had at least a dozen books out and had appeared on one or more top-romances lists. I strongly prefer well-researched historicals— currently Stella Riley is a favorite, for instance.
Why does Eloisa James get a pass when others don’t? It’s very idiosyncratic. First, she’s the daughter of Robert Bly, a poet whose work I enjoy and admire. I heard him read in person a couple of times, so I feel a (completely irrational) personal connection to James. Second, my college classes as an English major were heavy on Shakespeare and 16th century literature, so I enjoy her literary allusions and have encountered a lot of the writers she references. Finally, I basically read her books as parodies or absurdities in some ways — the peculiar names, the need to have a duke of some sort, the down-the-rabbit-hole forays into rubber bands or plumbing or other inspirations — make her books complete fantasies for me.
And yes, all that experimenting James does leads to unpredictable outcomes, where some books are great and some… are not. I will read each one at least once, and I find her comments on each book often put its strengths and failures in context for me.
I think James is routinely interesting in ways that are unexpected. She’s also often very funny.
My first Eloisa James book was “Echanting Pleasures”, which came highly recommended and sounded great from the blurb. Sad to say I hated it. I can´t remember why exactly, but I remember that something happened to the heroine which really upset me and made me dislike the book very much. I didn´t read her for years afterward but heard people rave about her.
I then started to try the Essex sisters and found the first book (Much ado about you) very confusing with all the stories that were going on. It felt like an ensemble romance book where the actual hero and heroine didn´t get enough story to keep me involved. It wasn´t bad, but I felt it was odd and kinda hit and miss.
My third try was “Pleasure for Pleasure” and that one was a winner. I truly enjoyed it, even though it too had way too many stories going on. The next I loved was the first in her fairy tale series, “A kiss at midnight”. It reminded me of the Nanny McPhee movie with the characters not being quite accurate to their time on purpose. And the follow up “When beauty tamed the beast” is actually among my top 5 historical romances. I love it and have reread it quite often. I have to admit though after that book I haven´t quite read another one of hers that truly wowed me. But I still have some of her classics on my TBR pile and I hope I´ll meet another winner.
I agree with those saying, “when she is good she is really good”, brilliant in fact. I love her humor and that she goes unusual ways with her characters and their story. The writing is overall great too, but sometimes her books just don´t work for me.