Maiden Lane #12.6
Elizabeth Hoyt
Historical Romance
Published in 2017
H/h - Adam Rutledge, Viscount D'Arque/Lady Sarah St. John
Setting: Yorkshire, England 1741.
Read in December, 2018.
My rating:
[spoiler alert]
Once Upon a Christmas Eve
is the last novella in Elizabeth Hoyt’s fantastic historical romance
series, Maiden Lane. This series has officially ended in 2017 after 12
full-length novels under its belt. It also got some novellas of
secondary characters thrown in between. I’ve been with this series since
2011—which originally started publishing from 2010—and have been
following the publication of every book ever since. If you’ve followed
or read any of my reviews of Maiden Lane, you’ll know this is one of my
favorite series by one of my most favorite HR authors and it hurts to
know that a series that has been a part of my life for so long, has
finally come to an end. Which I suppose probably was for the best
because the series had veered away from the original storyline in the
recent years.
Once Upon a Christmas Eve is the story of 2
individuals who were introduced in the series quite far back and
frankly speaking, I wasn’t really expecting their stories, even in a
novella format. Mostly because they were minor characters and I don’t
really remember much about them. They are Viscount D’Arque and Lady
Sarah St. John. Sarah is the half-sister of Godric St. John, hero of
book 5 Lord of Darkness published in 2013. Though I remember the storyline and our H and h, I don’t remember Sarah AT ALL and D’Arque very vaguely.
I’ll
not go into the storyline of the original series as I’ve rehashed
myself many times over the years. If you want to know more about the
series, at this point you really should begin from book 1, Wicked Intentions.
Usually Ms. Hoyt’s books in a series connect one another in some
way—through characters, circumstances, story/plot flow etc. But Once Upon a Christmas Eve
is a really short novella and doesn’t strongly connect to any previous
installments. Well maybe a little to book 5 which introduced our main
protagonists. All I remembered about Adam, Viscount D’Arque is that he’s
a rake and was in some sort of competition with Godric for Margaret or
Megs’s affection. D’Arque mostly flirted, cause he’s an incorrigible
rake who is not really fond of the idea of marriage. I’ll be damned if I
remember anything about Sarah and how she connected with Adam except
for the fact that she despises rakes. A girl after my own heart! ;)
Setting-wise, this novella takes place about a year after Lord of Darkness
and no other regular recurring characters make appearances in this
novella. In that way you can easily read it as a standalone. The only 2
individual I actually knew were Godric and Megs. The
rest seemed pretty new characters. The story takes place a few days
before Christmas when Adam was accompanying his only living relative,
his grandma Lady Whimple, to another relative’s house for a Christmas
visit. It was freezing cold in the middle of the night and their
carriage suffers a mishap which renders it useless. Adam, the cold and
cynical rake, was extremely worried (no, make it quite terrified) about
his grandmère becoming ill in this weather. After all
Lady Whimple was in her 80s or 90s and she did look like she was coming
down with something. Adam pronto needed to find some sort of shelter
for them until their carriage was fixed.
On his hunt for a
shelter for the night, Adam comes across Godric’s country home that’s
called the Hedge House or simply the ‘Hedges’. Of course Godric, however
much dislike he held for the man in question, would never back away
from helping him when there’s an urgency here involving an elderly
lady’s well-being. And so Adam and Lady Whimple find shelter within the
Hedges for the next few days until his grandmother was feeling better
again.
Adam couldn’t fault the inhabitants of the house— who
were apparently also holding a small houseparty consisting of a few
outside residents—maybe except for one. Sarah St. John, Godric’s sister
who gave him the most disdainful look when he arrived, then welcomed him
with a tone dripping with sarcasm. Adam should’ve found her irksome but
no matter how much he tried he failed to do just that and much more. He
couldn’t even forget about her though they met only
once and for a really short time. Sarah is nothing
like the women Adam usually prefers; in looks or in marital status. He
prefers beautiful married women or widows for affairs. Sarah isn’t what
you’d call a ravishing beauty and she’s most definitely a virgin. All of
this was aggravating to Adam who was baffled by his body’s reaction to
her when what he should’ve been feeling was an equal amount of disdain
for her.
Sarah felt much the same about Adam, wanting to hate
him but not as much as she would’ve liked to. After all, when you’re
extremely attracted to the target of your disdain, er, things become
quite sticky. And Sarah, who had a previous experience, wanted to avoid
any type of entanglement with a rake at all cost. Or she should be
trying to avoid anyway. But as the days passed, leaving Adam and his
grandmother stuck with them due to her health troubles, Sarah began
noticing things about him that Adam doesn’t usually show the outside
world. Like his utter devotion to his grandmother, which was very odd
seeing everybody knew him to be cold and distant. Littlest things that
begin to thaw Sarah’s heart and make her realize that Adam is not
exactly what meets the eyes. Okay so he’s very handsome, that much is
true to the eyes. He can be quite cutting and sarcastic when he wants to
be. But he also can be very affectionate and Sarah couldn’t honestly
say that she secretly didn’t want to be a part of that. :)
I
think Adam knew of Sarah’s dislike for rakes, or at least that’s how I
felt from their communication. If he didn’t he became aware of it pretty
soon. Not that she tried to hide it for the first few days. But in the
end it didn’t matter. Adam had stopped trying to act like he didn’t want
or care for Sarah in about, I’d say, 2 days into their sojourn to the
Hedges. At first it was the roaring lust but no way to act on it. Then
after meeting her family, seeing the familial bonds between them that he
wasn’t very familiar with, Adam’s intentions begin diverting towards
something more permanent with Sarah. And it helped to have his
grandmère’s approval on his choice. But Adam wasn’t
sure if Sarah would really become his. Could he redeem himself enough in
her eyes to convince her to give him a chance? Adam only knew he had to
try and try hard because he couldn’t even think of losing her.
I
really loved the beginning of the story and was warming up to Sarah and
Adam’s banters. The crazy chemistry between these two needed to be
explored further, with some storms and issues thrown in the way. Let’s
call it ‘the test’. Because, quite frankly speaking, the exceptionally
smooth sailing that they had within the span of maybe 2 weeks that Adam
stayed, seemed very far out of place. Not really believable. They were
attracted to each-other, I get that but I couldn’t quite imagine things
moving to marriage for them in such a short span of time, let alone the
love they professed to have for one-another. To me it felt like they
were only getting to know each-other. :/
Personally, I thought
that the end result was something that felt was rushed to the finish
just for the sake of it. I can’t honestly say I was happy. I’m actually
quite disappointed because this would’ve been such a great full-length
novel! I’d have preferred it over Alf’s book. 3 stars.
Putting
aside my grief over the end of Maiden Lane, I’m looking forward to Ms.
Hoyt’s new series coming in December 2018. So excited! :D
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