Scandalous Ever After (Romance of the Turf) Mass Market Paperback – July 4, 2017

I'm fortunate that a lot of other reviewers already covered the basic plot of this one, because I am a disaster at summarizing stories! Suffice it to say that Evan and Kate are old friends who are reunited after the death of Kate's ghastly husband, who has ever-so-throughfully saddled Kate with debts, secrets and some understandable trust issues. Evan's always loved Kate, but they have their share of issues as individuals and a potential couple, needing to slay past demons and overcome present obstacles. Will they triumph over adversity?! Well, yes, if you've ever read a romance, you already know that they will :) As always with romances, it's the who and how, not the 'whether', that makes this worth the read.My auto-buy list, which once contained 12-14 HR authors, has now dwindled down to two or three. I buy far fewer historical romances now because I've become disillusioned with certain aspects of the genre...and, sadly, I have far less money to spend on books than I used to!This book served as a perfect reminder of why Theresa Romain is one of those 2-3 authors whose work I still can't wait to devour. First and foremost, she's just such a stellar writer. If you have friends who automatically deride the writing quality of all books in this genre, Theresa Romain is the author I'd probably use to prove them wrong. Her prose and dialogue are impeccably well-crafted, loaded with wit and a surprising amount of psychological depth and insight yet still delightfully easy to read. (As opposed to authors who, in an attempt to seem more 'literary', write exhaustingly long, taxing paragraphs filled with overstuffed sentences and awkwardly pretentious phrasing!)The other thing that sets Romain's books apart from the increasingly lackluster pack for me is that she writes such kind, genuinely lovable heroes. One main reason I've become less and less enchanted with the genre over the past couple of decades is that we're so often asked to root for ostensible "heroes" who can seem more like villains---nasty, bitter, cruel-to-everyone-except-occasionally-the-heroine jerks or Regency Era frat boys who stagger through life drunk, egregiously selfish, and proudly sleeping with every woman on the continent until our heroine has the pleasure of taming him. Some may find Romain's more "beta" heroes less interesting, but I find them so much more complex, relatable and just plain likable.Most of Romain's heroes and/or heroines have certain hardships and internal struggles beyond the usual obstacles we see, e.g. 'needs a wife to satisfy his parents' or 'needs more money to care for her family.' In this one, Evan has struggled with what would be diagnosed as depression if he were alive today. The author depicts this with a great deal of sensitivity: she poignantly shows how it's affected him---as someone who's battled depression throughout my life, I can attest to the accuracy! Rest assured that this doesn't make for a bleak and joyless read by any stretch, though---Evan is a funny, warm, wryly self-aware, brave and layered character who's not defined solely by his struggles.Like a few other people here, I had trouble connecting with Kate initially. She seemed so defined by her role as an irresponsible jerk's widowed wife that I couldn't get a sense of who she was outside of it. But a few lines Romain scattered throughout about how Kate "didn't know who to be" (that may not be the EXACT wording, but it's close!) made me realize that that's the point: Kate, like many women then and some now, DIDN'T have a strong sense of who she was outside of her role as wife, and this particular marriage did a lot to erode her trust in herself and others. When viewed through that lens, her inconsistency and uncertainty with regard to our wonderful Evan became more understandable to me: her marriage had left her struggling to figure out who she truly was, how she really felt, and how and whether to act accordingly.As with most romances, there are a few points where I rolled my eyes a bit and just wanted them to get it the heck together already, but that's as much due to my own typical lack of patience as it is to this book and its characters :) It's worth noting that Kate isn't just some indecisive, insecure wet blanket---she's funny, spirited in her own way, quite determined, and is clearly a loving and passionate woman. I ended up liking her a lot more than I expected and, more importantly, totally bought into the bond between her and Evan.The pacing is a little slow and the plotting is a little lacking. That doesn't factor heavily into my opinion of a romance---I'm all about the characters, dialogue, prose and blend of humor and "awwww"-eliciting sweetness!---but if intricate plots and quick pacing are important to you, this book might not fully satisfy you. The sex scenes are somewhat lukewarm---maybe I'm just projecting here, but sometimes I get the feeling that Theresa Romain doesn't really enjoy writing the explicit sex scenes that are expected in nearly every romance novel any more than I enjoy reading them. Explicit sex scenes are something I always skim at this point anyway because I find the painfully detailed, play-by-play descriptions of anything beyond kissing to be un-sexy and just not very enjoyable to read, but I know I'm in a very small minority :) Anyway, I'm thinking some fans might not find these scenes as 'steamy' as they'd like, but as you can tell from what I just wrote, I'm far from an expert on that aspect of romance novels!If you love kind, funny, eminently relatable 'beta' heroes and are as delighted and inspired by great prose and dialogue as I am, this is a must buy!

I have LOVED some of Romain's work, but her most recent releases have been a huge disappointment for me. Gone are the gentle, purely character driven novels that have just the right amount of internal reflection to make them thoughtful without being slow with warm family settings and no needless drama. Lately, there has been too much internal thought, not enough communication, and needless angst to propel a story along.Romain can definitely write, there is no doubt about that, which is why I keep trying again, but this book just couldn't keep my attention.In the opening chapter, I adored the hero, Evan. I liked that he seemed to battle depression of some sort, had a quirky sense of humor, and nursed a long-running love for his best friend's widow. There was so much potential there for a beta hero! But then, Evan proved to be an enormous pushover. It was pathetic. He had all these strong feelings and never vocalized anything. He was willing to have casual sexual encounters with Kate when she felt like it and he never actually told her how he felt (he does at the very end but too little too late). Kate is not much better. She complains about her situation but turns a blind eye to all the support she actually has. Her husband was not a good guy, but really, she proves herself time and again to be a selfish person who is blind to everything but what is convenient for her. And then she is upset that no one "knows" her or "sees" her even though I've seen the love she gets from her children, her siblings and father, and from Evan. It was like both characters were emotionally stunted. And then there was drama galore and I couldn't take it anymore.Despite this book's beautiful cover that I desperately wanted to keep on my shelf, I couldn't like this book. I couldn't care about the characters, I got frustrated with the lack of communication and growth, the sex scenes came out of nowhere, and the drama was endless.I will not be reading Romain's newest series which also promises more of the same. Until I see reviews that point to romances like Romain's It Takes Two to Tangle, My Scandalous Duke, or Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress, I will be taking a break for a while.

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