simply amazing!!! I won't bother with a real summary of the book- another reader did that pretty well. But after reading this I knew that this book will always be one of my favs. It was an incredible read-I just couldn't put it down.
It has everything you could want in a romance novel. The romantic tension and chemistry b/t Lissa and Ivan sizzles in each scene they are in. It's a story about yearning and love and yes, anger. Our characters are in love with each other, but act like they hate each other due to both of their unwillingness to forgive and forget. But they are very likable, real characters. I really felt for Lissa's poverty stricken situation, and Ivan's anger over how he had been treated for most of his life when he was just a bastard stableboy working in Lissa's household.
Great writing too- this is no cheesey romance pounded out in a month. It's a story with substance as well as romance.
I can't think of anything negative about this book. It kept me entranced and emotionally invested until the very last word. Amazing!!!
Not McKinney's best Rarely have I disliked a heroine more than Lissa. She is incredibly spoiled, arrogant, and prideful. I never could understand why the hero, Ivan, did not just forget her and find someone else. I really could not believe this woman loved him.
Lissa's family is impoverished, this was not always so. In fact, Ivan was employed as a stable boy by her father. They had the beginnings of love long ago but then Lissa cruelly rejected Ivan, with a slap across his face with a riding crop for good measure.
Ivan, who has been supporting her secretly for years, should have been more open about his largess. But with Lissa's pride she would have had her family begging in the streets before she accepted charity from him. To her credit she does take a wage earning job as Ivan's housekeeper keeping her cool aloof persona the whole time. She treats Ivan as if he is a womanizing, lout. Even worrying what kind of negative effect he will have on her little brother. This is love?
The writing is good and Megan McKinney has written other exceptional historicals but this is not one I would recommend.
wow! So different Coming into this book, I thought it would be like many other books. The tortured servant who gets rich and reverses roles with the heroine, seeking revenge. So this actually is the plot, but what makes this book so different and so memorable is the passion that you can just feel between the two characters.
Lissa and Ivan love each other, you can see that the whole novel, but they hate each other just as much and both are tortured by the other, unable to admit to themselves or the other, for fear of getting hurt, that they love. Because you feel so deeply for these two charcters, they become very lifelike and very likeable.
This is one of the best romance novels I have ever read; it makes me feel; it gets into my head and I cannot forget it. Read it.
So much hate for a romance book I kept reading this book to see if the protagonists would get a truly lovely moment together but I wasn't granted my wish. Until the last pages there is too much hate and doubt for my taste. I really hoped it would get better but it didn't this book just got me angry every time I started reading it.
I like vengeful cads, too, but this one lacks a motive. I like a tortured hero in need of redemption as well as anyone, but there was no excuse for this one's cruelty to a woman who had treated him badly when she was just a girl.
Yes, she struck him and left a scar. Nasty, that. But considering what she suffered that day and in the years since (I won't spoil the tragedy for you, but trust me, it's awful) and that he's fully aware of all this before he returns for his revenge, the degree of contempt with which he treats her isn't something you'd expect from a sane adult.
So naturally, I couldn't put the book down.
Few things are sexier than an unrepentant cad who doesn't know yet that he's in love. But I need a believable motive for my cads' behavior, or I feel uncomfortable reading them. There's something masochistic about finding such a man attractive. The anxiety can compel me to keep reading, but when there are no light moments to relieve the darkness, it's not entirely enjoyable.
So why bother? Because I enjoy McKinney's writing style, she does a lovely job of building and sustaining sexual chemistry between her protangonists, and the sex scenes are worth waiting for.
I can't help but compare this author with others of comparable talent, but whose Cruel & Remorseless Cads are not just sexy, but somehow likeable: Judith Ivory ("Untie My Heart"); Christina Dodd ("A Well Favored Gentleman," The Governess Brides series); Connie Brockway ("A Dangerous Man," "My Dearest Enemy"); Liz Carlyle ("The Devil You Know" and 'most anything else she writes). No matter how selfish and despicable the behavior of a typical cad by one of these writers, I always know there will be glimpses of likeability and signs that a conscience is coming to the fore. The best cads are endowed with something inherently lovable besides a strong sex drive and an effective glower: a touch of self-depracating humor; an inner monologue that explains the motive for continuing bad behavior. That's what makes them adults and not pouting boys.
It would have been easier to like the protagonist in "When Angels Fall" if he hadn't known all along about the tragedies that had dogged the heroine since the day he left. But it was clear from the opening chapters that he'd been having her spied on since the day he left, knew the adversity she had faced, and with how much courage and dignity, yet he'd continued with his plot to make her penniless, seduce her, and subject her to one last humiliation by refusing marriage.
I kept thinking there would be a revelation that would explain him.
"Maybe," I thought, grasping at straws, "maybe he's planning a surprise party for his beloved and he's only *pretending* to ruin her, to make sure it will be a surprise." Lame, I know; but I would have settled for it.
When Angels Fall is a passionate read, but a painful one. I plan to read more of Meagan McKinney, but I hope to find 5% less anguish next time. Any suggested titles?
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