Reading Under the Willow Tree

For this review and more my blog

The Notorious Lady Anne was one of those books that had a lot wrong with it but for some reason I actually ended up really quite enjoying. I find that I am at odds with myself, on one hand, as a book reader and book obsessive I know that this wasn’t quite good enough and there were a few to many problems, but you can’t help what you like and I liked The Notorious Lady Anne.

The biggest issue with this book is Lady Anne herself (also known as Emmaline). She is a notorious swoosh-buckling pirate who strikes fear into the hearts of men, yet despite all that I found her to be a bit of a push over. She has been looking after herself for years but introduce her to one good looking guy and she falls to pieces. She constantly needed saving and despite her arguments Nicholas sweeps in and takes over, he gets his way in every part of this book and she essentially gives up everything to be with him. This is a big problem because the whole set up of the book is based around the fact that this woman is strong.

However…often there was mention of the laws, customs and expectations of the time period this book is set in. Often I sit here, reading a book and my inner feminist gets angry over the treatment of woman. What I forget is that historical novels are set in the past where women’s rights and social etiquette is different that it is now. I would hate history to be wiped because I get offended over how life used to be. We can use the past to learn for it so I wouldn’t want it any other way. Taking that into account and looking closely at what happens in this book maybe Lady Anne is not as weak as I thought she was.

Another issue is the length. For me it was a little too long and left to much room for Nicholas and Emmaline to argue.

Despite the issues there was something about The Notorious Lady Anne that I really liked. It just had something about it. I quite liked the romance and the characters and I loved that it was mostly set at sea.

The Notorious Lady Anne is far from perfect, there are issues here and some people will struggle with it but if you like historical romances then you might want to check this one out.



The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review