| Date: 11 April 2011, 21:13
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Viscount Harrison Marlowe has caused a scandal among the peers of the realm: first with his divorce from his American wife, second with his decision to go into trade and work as a publisher, and third with his assertions that women should be treated equally to men and, accordingly, his employment of a female secretary. With the editorials he publishes in his newspapers that widely discredit the institution of marriage, and his firm proclamations that he will never wed again, Harry does not seem like the sort of gentleman that a lady would go after. To the contrary, however, the women of the ton see him as a challenge and each believes that she will be the one to finally bring this stray dog to heel.
Miss Emmaline Dove, Harry's female secretary, is usually the one who winds up being the bearer of bad news to the string of mistresses and broken hearts that Harry tends to leave in his wake. She organizes his schedule, runs a good deal of his business, as well as shops for the presents that he will eventually send his lady friends when he no longer requires their company. Though she is a lady in the truest sense of the word, and her propriety is her pride and joy, Emma continues to work for Harry in the hopes that he will eventually publish the line of etiquette books that she writes under the pseudonym of Mrs. Bartleby. When it becomes clear that he will never do so, and that he has in fact never even read her work and instead rejects it without review, Emma quits her position and throws Harry's entire world into a tailspin.
And Then He Kissed Her is one of the best romances I've read this year and had all of the elements that will keep me coming back to more of Guhrke's work. First of all, the novel flowed in an easy-to-read, quick-paced, and well plotted format which is more rare than you would imagine. Everything seemed to happen in a logical order, and even though it was more than 200 pages before Emma and Harry even had their first kiss, the entire wait was fraught with sexual tension and heightened arousal so much that I couldn't wait for them to finally touch each other. Harry and Emma were both well thought out characters who developed over the course of the novel. Emma starts off as a pious, on-the-shelf spinster who puts propriety before her own happiness and is so consumed with keeping up appearances she cannot stop to think about what she wants for her own life. Meeting Harry, and falling in love with him, allows her to let go of the defenses she's erected and to realize that she does deserve happiness, even at the expense of her own reputation. Similarly, though Harry starts off as the worst sort of cad, a man who will send a woman a bracelet when he's done with her and just say good riddance when she wants him back, he eventually becomes the sort of man who would be worthy of a woman of Emma's style and grace. The relationship between these two and the way they teach one another to grow and become better people is a perfect example of what a good romance should do, and the happiness I felt for them and genuine sorrow when the book was over is the exact way that I should feel if a romance novel has done its job.
I picked up And Then He Kissed Me because Julia Quinn recommended it on her web site and, as she's one of my favorite romance authors, I'll usually try anything she gives a stamp of approval. She was right on target in this instance, and I'll definitely add Laura Lee Guhrke to my list of go-to authors in the historical romance genre.
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