March Book Club

For March we read When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa james.

-Plot-

Miss Linnet Berry Thrynne is a Beauty . . . Naturally, she's betrothed to a Beast.

Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, lives in a castle in Wales where, it is rumored, his bad temper flays everyone he crosses. And rumor also has it that a wound has left the earl immune to the charms of any woman.

Linnet is not just any woman.

She is more than merely lovely: her wit and charm brought a prince to his knees. She estimates the earl will fall madly in love—in just two weeks.

Yet Linnet has no idea of the danger posed to her own heart by a man who may never love her in return.

If she decides to be very wicked indeed . . . what price will she pay for taming his wild heart?
--From goodreads.com.


-Discussion-
Since our meeting was canceled for January and was a chocolate tasting and book browsing for February we discussed both the January and the March book selections.  Lucky for us they were books one and two of Eloisa’s Fairy Tales.  January was A Kiss at Midnight, based on the Cinderella fairy tale and March was When Beauty Tamed the beast, based on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.

I enjoyed both books and I have to say I think everyone else did as well (well those of us that read both books), but I really liked the second book more.  When Beauty Tamed the Beast just felt like a more believable story, it was easier to relate to the characters, Linnet and Piers just seemed like people you could meet on the street, you know if you lived back then and they were real. With A Kiss at Midnight there were just aspects that didn’t work for me and I couldn’t connect with Kate and Gabriel. From the discussion it seems that there were others that felt the same or it’s just me thinking that *shrugs* either way we spent more time discussing When Beauty Tamed the Beast. 

One of the more interesting threads of conversation was the discussion of how our hero, Piers, resembles a certain bad tempered TV doctor.  One woman said she picked up on it right away, I drew comparisons but it wasn’t until half way through the book that I was pretty sure, and a few didn’t pick up on the comparison until reading the note at the end where Eloisa James states that Piers is based on Dr. House. 

The other interesting thread was the discussion of what really happened to the footman that was with Linnet.  Did he die or did they burry him alive?  I’m not quite sure but the group was leaning towards the burring alive thought. 

With both books there were scenes that just felt off, more so in A Kiss at Midnight and that plot than with When Beauty Tamed the Beast.  With A Kiss at Midnight the whole plot was just kind of screwy.  Kate was being forced to pretend to be her step sister to impress her fiancé’s cousin who is some kind of German royalty. A lot of the characters were over the top, yet lovable like Kate’s godmother, but it just started to get weird when her father’s faults started to come to light and what Kate thought she knew about her family was completely wrong.  Now When Beauty Tamed the Beast only started off this way and I didn’t think I would like it, but once Kate leaves her father and aunt in London things become “normal” and the character aren’t too over the top or put into awkward situations.