The Scandal In Kissing An Heir: At The Kingsborough Ball (At the Kingsborough Ball, #2)

by Sophie Barnes

He is the next Marquess of Wolvington ...She is a lady with nothing but beauty and wits ...Together they share a forbidden kiss . Lady Rebecca is determined to find a husband on her own terms, rather than marry any of the aging suitors her greedy aunt and uncle foist upon her. Her chance comes at the Kingsborough Ball, where she meets several potential grooms ...yet no one compares to the dangerously handsome Daniel Neville. Notorious rake and heir to the Marquess of Wolvington, Daniel Neville is in need of a bride, but finding a lady who's willing to accept his past is an entirely different matter. When he spies a stunning woman across the ballroom, Daniel believes he's found her ...until scandal erupts around them. How can he convince Rebecca to take a chance on him ...and on the love that could be theirs forever after?

• ISBN10: 0062245171
• ISBN13: 9780062245175
• Publish Date: 31 December 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 10 April 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Avon Books
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.com.au/9780062245175

Reviews

[Amanda]

Historical romance is my crack. I can be incredibly forgiving when all I want is some fluff to disappear into for a few hours on the weekend. Unfortunately, there were a few things that kept me from truly enjoying The Scandal in Kissing an Heir.

A choppy plot: successful plots have one overarching question that drives the story forward. In romance, you've got the marriage or "I love you"s or the promise of a HEA... and usually one other story problem outside the romance that drives the characters together. Rebecca and Daniel had obstacles throughout the story -- meeting, getting away from her guardians, eloping, more that's spoilerish I won't reveal -- but they're almost presented as self-contained obstacles that don't necessarily drive the plot forward. Every time I thought I'd latched onto the overarching question/problem, it would be solved and I'd be left wondering what was going to happen for the rest of the book. Even the "I love you"s came before the end. So... yeah.

Unresolved plot threads: Rebecca gets shot early in the story (therefore not considering it a spoiler) and... either it never fully got addressed in who did it, or it was so minor I missed it. I kept waiting for some kind of big reveal, especially if the shot was directed at Daniel, not Rebecca, but nada.

Unbelievable situations: Rebecca gets shot in the shoulder, then she's up and fine the next day. There was no fear of fever or anything. I can suspend belief for certain things, but I've had problems with this type of situation before. (Do people really recover from gunshots so quickly in the 1800s? I highly doubt it.) Rebecca isn't the only one who gets shot and recovers quickly, either.

Naming emotions rather than showing: This is something I'm sensitive to now that I'm writing and using The Emotional Thesaurus (a writing book I'd highly recommend), and a lot of the narrative involves telling us how the characters are feeling. Because we don't get to "see" for ourselves what the characters are feeling, it's harder to relate to them. The characters were also very good at communication and being honest and figuring out what the other was experiencing, even if they didn't talk about. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for quality communication between characters. But when it's easy, it lacks tension, and that does little to keep us turning pages.