Lydia Dare - A Certain Wolfish Charm

The rules of Society can be beastly-especially when you're a werewolf and it's that irritating time of the month. Simon Westfield, the Duke of Blackmoor, is rich, powerful, and sinfully handsome, and has spent his entire life creating scandal and mayhem. It doesn't help his wolfish temper at all that Miss Lily Rutledge seems not the least bit afraid of him, and in fact, may be as untamable as he is...
A woman whose charm is stronger than the moon...
When Lily's beloved nephew's behavior becomes inexplicably wild, she turns to Simon, the boy's cousin and guardian, for help. But Simon's idea of assistance is far different than hers, and Lily finds herself ensconced in his house and engaged to the rogue.
They both may have bitten off more than they can chew when each begins to discover the other's darkest secrets...

Comment: Another book from the TBR pile...

In this book, a combination of historical setting and PNR content, we meet miss Lily Rutledge, who has had the care of her nephew Oliver since the death of his parents, although the guardian is truly the duke of Blackmoor. Recently, Oliver has shown some weird traits and unlike his perfectly quiet childhood, he is now more anxious and irritable, something Lily can't understand. The duke has ignored her letters and calls for help and she decides to take matters into hands and seeks him in his house, for he must have some idea why a teenage boy is behaving this way but things don't as she planned...

The duke and his family, along with a few others, hide a secret: the males can shape shift into wolves and this affects their relationships sometimes. Oliver's parents are a clear example and Simon, the duke, prefers to avoid such fate by not marrying or by not sharing that part of himself with a wife. However, things get out of his control the longer Lily is in his life and if he wants to even consider her as a wife, he knows she can't find out the truth... or can she?

Sometimes, I still have a lot of faith in the unread books I've collected through the years. Sometimes not really. In regards to this one, I was torn because I do like the shape shifters idea in PNR or UF and that is why I often got books with the content. But I also can't help to imagine things after a word or two in reviews, even though I try to not read them before I read the books, but sometimes preconceived ideas settle in, and in the case of this book, I've created this idea the story would be boring.

Well, in a way my expectations were met because it is quite frustrating how long it takes for Lily to discover the truth about Oliver and the duke and part of me, the one who really enjoys PNR, would have preferred the story to be about Lily dealing with the notion - hopefully in a positive way - and with the characters around her, than this "being in the dark" status. It did make for a slightly boring read when almost everyone knew the secret and she didn't.

I could also accept the duke's reluctance to tell her if this had been a sudden situation but it's been something in his life since ever and there others around him with the same feature. His mother knew about his father's condition and there are other family members too. But the duke, supposedly an intelligent man, chooses to use as reference the sad case of his friend Daniel and his wife Emily (Oliver's parents) instead of the positive cases in his own family. I mean.... why is one situation more true than the other in his mind?

Anyway, this is how things go, so the duke and Lily have this quick meeting if it was an enemies to lovers thing, then he can't help think about her and so on, and very conveniently social rules become important after several scenes where it feels they weren't, and the duke and Lily must marry. At this point I should say I was a little annoyed at the characters, doing stuff they shouldn't but only when the plot needed was it such a problem... I can only imagine the author wanted the story to develop a specific way and in that moment an historical setting was helpful, but to be honest, I don't think neither element - the historical setting and the paranormal content - was necessary to be together to move this story along.

I feel any setting could have been used and the same issues would have been what the author would develop, so... the historical setting did feel the weakest link in this whole thing. Even the secondary characters and their presence wasn't always very organic, in the sense that if it had been different people, we would have the same plot, the same issues. I feel the point was not to really create a complex and layered world, but to use certain aspects as they became handy... including secondary characters who will be protagonists in future books (I've read the blurbs of the following books).

The romance between Lily and Simon was OK at times, there were certain scenes which I feel had potential, but perhaps I've read enough historicals to think many things were repetitive in a stereotypical way here... No, actually I'll rephrase: the cliches and the same ideas work when they are well done, so here my issue is that they weren't, such as the ridiculous scenes when they attend the theater and jealousy and gossip influence Lily's reactions and such... rather disappointing, I think.

The author could have used these cliches to really explain things or advance the plot or to reveal a side of Lily and of Simon that would show how much more above everything they were or how this could have helped them see things in different perspective, but...I feel the purpose was not to really add depth to the main story line. I feel the idea was to go from A to B in any way, even if it wasn't very good. Therefore, the romance worked out but to me was very flimsy and without true bases. When Lily finally learns what should have been obvious - considering how the author wrote this - it was cute but not very rewarding, in my opinion.

This wasn't a bad book on its own but I feel it could have been so much better. Perhaps having expectations should never happen either, but it's hard to ignore that, right? At least it was easy to pass the time with it, and it's one less book in the pile!

Grade: 5/10