Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney

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Oh, man. I love Mary Jo Putney. I love the Lost Lords series. And this book... was just not up to the standard set by the previous five. It was really, really not at the same level. This was an ARC, and while the technical (proofreading) editing was fine, the story-line (line and substantive editing) really needed some work. Maybe some of this will be cleaned up before the book is put into print.
A lot of Putney's books start with some action, but this one starts with our hero falling ill, getting mugged and beaten, ending up on the heroine's door, and then a passionate encounter after eleven years of separation. What the what? The story then slows considerably before continuing in odd fits and starts, culminating in a realization that would be fine in a Christian/Inspirational romance novel but seemed odd in a more mainstream book that had heretofore only infrequently (though with heavy, heavy hand) referred to the heroine's religion.
Anyway, the story - Lauren and James married young and then separated when James did something So Horrible that Lauren just couldn't stand to be with him anymore. So she left and went to Bristol with her brother (a doctor) to help him with his work. They also opened a home for abused women. When Lauren... encounters... James, she comes up pregnant. Which can happen. And they decide to reconcile. Okay. But it all seems so... forced. And somewhat boring. The middle of the book reads more like a regular Putney novel. More exploring the characters than a ton of action which is good. But...
There is exposition. Dear God. The exposition. It's like some newbie editor said, "We need to know everything about the other couples in this series, can you do a mini-recap for each and every one of them? Yeah, that's what readers want." This is not the way to entice people to read other books in the series at it cuts each character down to two dimensions from the wonderful pictures that were painted in their own stories.
And while we do get to learn more about Laurel in this middle part of the book, none of it seems to fit very well. It's like her personality traits were plucked at random from some jar and had to be wedged into the story. At least for Laurel. She's supposedly this rigid, almost Methodist, person but she is also incredibly wild in the bedroom for someone who left her husband eleven years earlier and only after their honeymoon (deciding to fall into bed with him after their absence.) She left her husband but is ready to forgive. Even when he repeats his actions, which she finds out were justified, but she still can't get over it.
And what was the point of meeting Laurel's parents? We're already hammered over the head with the fact that she wants their approval. Again, it seems that someone decided that every... single... thing... had to be explained.
If the book had started out with the scene that caused Laurel to leave her husband, then jumped to the start and proceeded chronologically from there, had excluded the rather tedious exposition, this could have been a very good book. This is still a very high 2 for me, but I just couldn't give it a three miler, especially since the rest of the books in the series were so good.
Previous book: Sometimes a Rogue

Sometimes a Rogue by Mary Jo Putney

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Oh. I liked this book. I've been waiting to read Sarah's story since her twin got married in Loving a Lost Lord. And Sarah starts out the book as a heroine.
She's walking with her sister, Mariah, a duchess about to give birth. They hear some men planning to kidnap Mariah and Sarah bravely takes her place. She's a spinster with nothing to lose while Mariah is living a very happy life.
It's a good thing that Rob Carmichael is just arriving on the estate. He's a Bow Street Runner (though noble born) and is still recovering from his some-time bedmate falling in love with, and marrying, a man that Rob doesn't particularly like (another good book, No Longer a Gentleman.) He thought they were in a committed relationship but the same wasn't true for the woman with whom he was involved.
But now he gets his HEA. If only they can escape the men who have kidnapped Sarah.

I loved that Sarah could ride horses so well but really disliked that Putney kept calling her a "tomboy who ran wild." It's great for the first description of Sarah as a girl, but after about the third time... eh. It was also interesting to me that Adam's aunt came back into the picture, though it was plain she was the villain but I am very happy that they killed her off.
I also enjoyed Rob's grandmother. She is cruel to him at first but then realizes that she is backing the wrong team by continuing to believe the lies of his dead half-brother and quickly starts to help Rob start cleaning up the mess left by the last two earls.
A major relief was that Rob's first love didn't turn out to be alive. The bastard daughter was an interesting spoke but I was so afraid that her mother was going come back and I just didn't see how Sarah could compete or how Rob could turn her away without being a complete jerk, even if she had "changed."

I loved the character development of the major characters and the minor characters were also fun. The villain was... maybe an unnecessary wrinkle but it was minor in an otherwise highly enjoyable book.