Words I Write Crazy: Week 19-20 Reviews: Lavender Morning, Days of Gold, Scarlet Nights, The Scent of Jasmine

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Week 19-20 Reviews: Lavender Morning, Days of Gold, Scarlet Nights, The Scent of Jasmine

From Goodreads:
Jocelyn Minton is a woman torn between two worlds. Her mother grew up attending private schools and afternoon teas, but she married the local handyman. After her mother died when Joce was only five years old, her father remarried into his own class, and Joce became an outsider — until she met Edilean Harcourt. Although she was sixty years Joce's senior, Miss Edi was a kindred soul who understood her like no one else ever had.

When Miss Edi passes away, she leaves Joce all her worldly possessions, including an eighteenth-century house and a letter with clues to a mystery that began in 1941. In the letter, Miss Edi also mentions that she has found the perfect man for Joce — a handsome young lawyer. Joce is shocked to learn that the mystery, the house, and the future love of her life are all in Edilean, a small town in Virginia that Miss Edi never told her about. Hurt that the woman who meant so much to her kept so many secrets, Jocelyn moves to this tight-knit village in an attempt to understand the legacy that has been left to her. As she begins to dig into Miss Edi's mystery, she soon discovers some shocking surprises about her family's history and her own future — and she meets a man with his own mysterious past.

From Goodreads:
In 1766 Scotland, the laird of the clan, Angus McTern, has everything he wants in life. Although his grandfather lost the family's land and castle in a card game when Angus was just a boy, Angus takes his duties seriously and is respected by all the men and adored by the women. That is, until Edilean Talbot shows up.

Breathtakingly beautiful and born of privilege, Edilean represents everything Angus despises. Still he is as dazzled by her as everyone else is, and he can keep his feelings hidden from her for only so long. When she rejects him he is deeply wounded and, worse, humiliated before his clan. But then the day comes when Edilean needs Angus's help, to reclaim the gold she inherited from her father, which is on its way to America. At first Angus refuses, but her beauty -- and her tears -- so haunt him that he puts aside his pride and decides to aid the heiress. However, when Angus tries to intervene, he's accused of kidnapping and theft. To avoid being prosecuted, he's forced to leave behind all that he knows and loves and escape with Edilean to America. There they will overcome almost insurmountable obstacles as they are pursued endlessly by the man who claims the gold for his own. Despite all that tries to keep them apart, Angus and Edilean also find a love as wild and free as the land itself.

From Goodreads:
What if you learned that your fiancé was not who he claimed to be?

Engaged to the charming and seductive Greg Anders, Sara Shaw is happily anticipating her wedding in Edilean, Virginia. The date has been set, the flowers ordered, even her heirloom dress is ready. But just three weeks before the wedding, Greg gets a telephone call during the night and leaves without explanation. Two days later, a man climbs up through a trapdoor in the floor of Sara's apartment, claiming that he is the brother of her best friend and that he's moving in. While Mike Newland is indeed telling the truth about his identity, his reason for being there reaches far deeper. He's an undercover detective, and his assignment is to use Sara to track down a woman who is one of the most notorious criminals in the United States—and also happens to be the mother of the man Sara plans to marry.

Mike thinks the job will be easy—if he can figure out how to make a "good" girl like Sara trust him, that is. But Mike has no idea what this mission has in store for him. He's worked hard to keep private his connections to Edilean, which date back to his grandmother's time there in 1941. But as Mike and Sara get to know each other, he can't help but share secrets about himself that he's told no one else. And in return, Sara opens up to Mike about things she could never reveal to Greg. As the pair work together to solve two mysteries, their growing love begins to heal each of them in ways they never could have imagined.

The Scent of Jasmine:
Would you risk your life—on the love of a lifetime?

Charleston, 1799: A daughter of Southern gentility and a gifted painter, Catherine Edilean Harcourt has no lack of suitors at home in Virginia, waiting to fulfill her dream of marriage and family. But Cay's adventurous spirit, fostered by growing up with her three brothers, is piqued while visiting her godfather in South Carolina. Bedridden with a broken leg, he asks Cay to fill in for him on an urgent task: on her way to a fancy dress ball, she must deliver a packed horse to an old friend's son—who also happens to be an escaped convict charged with murdering his wife! Cay agrees to the plan, which doesn't go at all as planned . . . whereupon she finds herself fleeing Alexander McDowell's captors, riding blind into the night with the fugitive Scotsman. Though she should fear him, Cay finds herself overwhelmingly attracted to Alex, and drawn into his tale of misguided justice and his innocence as they seek refuge in the steamy Florida everglades. Will trusting him be the worst mistake of her life? Or will falling in love be the salvation both of them have been looking for?

My Review:
I enjoyed this books. I loved the hoping around in time, the first book being around the present, the second in the past, then back again, and then back to the past. I enjoyed that. I particularly liked the books in the past, since they just seemed more rich with detail, and the stories had more to them then the modern day ones.

But I enjoyed all the books, I read them on my NY trip (all but the last one, that's why it's week 20, too) so they'll have a special place in my heart.

I loved how there was all these connections between the families, and the kids, and descendants, it was pretty cool to see, and how the author linked everybody, it was very interesting to me!

The books were very good, and I liked them a lot, and I'd recommend then to anyone who likes one families journey, and all the people that they meet.

Author: Jude Deveraux
Series: Elidean #1, 2, 3, 4
Read: May 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 2011
Source: Library
Reason Why: Sounded like a really great series!
Publisher: Atria Books, Pocket Books
Published: March 31st 2009, December 29th 2009, August 3rd 2010, December 28th 2010

Lavender Morning: