Kae Elle Wheeler

Gaming Hell Christmas Volume 2 contains two stories each featuring one of the fantastic young ladies who were once students of Miss Greensley’s School of Comportment for Young Ladies of Quality! While the first book of the series featured Alexandra and Annabelle, volume two focuses on Tori and Phil. The book was published by Chisel Imprint and came out on the 1st of December.

While I haven't read volume 1, based on the cover I can definitely say that both of these are very christmasy books! They also feature a solid group of female friends which kinda made me a bit sad because I miss my own group of girls who I met when I was in college!

The book is 177 pages long and consists of two stories that overlap in terms of time period. While Tori is trying to find out how to get the ring back (long story), Phil and Thom are swapping places and trying to avoid their mothers attention. Both the stories flowed into one another and I felt like I understood the group better after reading each one. The second one made me feel a bit sad because those were some messed up parents.

I do feel like each could be a bit longer. The Tori and Rhys thing was a bit rushed. I also would have loved to uncover more about Phil's fears. I was also very curious to see more about the gaming hall that the girls are members off. It's sort of supposed to be one of the main things but it's rarely featured in the books.… (más)

It's 1797, and in Georgian England, while women have no more legal rights than they will have in the coming Regency era, they do have somewhat more social freedom. The Girls of Wight, a small circle of friends who attended Miss Greensley's School of Comportment for Young Ladies of Quality, now 29 and all still unmarried, are exercising some of that freedom--still quite limited by modern standards.

One of them is Princess Augusta, a daughter of George III. Another is Alexandra, illegitimate but acknowledged and valued daughter of the Duke of Winsome. There are the twin daughters of an earl, Thomasina and Philomena. Victoria Lanford is an orphan who became the ward of her uncle when her parents died, and was sent to school and Miss Greensley's when she and her cousins, Delphine and Melanie, hated her. She now supports herself writing novels by "A Lady L."

Then there's Faustina Clara, now a very successful courtesan--not at all respectable, but the other women can, with care, maintain the acquaintance. Lady X, who might or might not be one of those named, but is certainly a friend, is the owner of a "gaming hell," La Sous Rose.

The Gaming Hell Christmas anthology series features overlapping, not consecutive, stories about each of the friends achieving romantic happy endings, with a party at La Sous Rose and the Duke of Winsome's Christmas ball featuring in each of them.

In this volume, we have Victoria's story, and Philomena's. Victoria has a little problem, a bad habit she picked up during the months she lived with her uncle and cousins--under severe emotional stress, she'll pick up jewelry or other small, valuable items dropped or left unattended by the person who caused the upset. To be clear, what her cousins do to her is serious bullying and emotional abuse. And while she takes the valuables, she also later leaves them where her cousins will find them and think they merely dropped or forgot them. She also, during that time, became friends with Rhys Neville, the heir of the neighboring lord,

When they meet again, years later, Victoria is earning enough from her secret career as a novelist to maintain a respectable if modest position in society, and attend society musical evenings. Along with some of her friends, she's at a typically mediocre concert, where she finds her cousins are also attending. Rhys Neville also appears--and she soon learns that Delphine is hoping to marry Rhys. Rhys's father would like that to happen, because it would result in combining the two neighboring estates. Because of the pressure from his father, Rhys is carrying the Neville engagement ring with him--and he drops it when he's helping Victoria comfort one of her friends. He doesn't notice, and when he has walked away, Victoria picks it up.

Of course, the "lost" ring, Victoria's guilt over it, Rhys's reluctance to marry one of her cousins, especially after meeting Victoria again, become the core of the a story that involves both social conflict and a very risky effort to get the ring back where it belongs.

Meanwhile, because the two stories are taking place in the same timeframe of approaching Christmas, Philomena is having her own troubles. She's been seeing a "visionary," a fortune teller, who is a complete fraud. She's convinced she's firmly on the shelf, never going to marry at the age of nearly thirty. Philomena openly visits Hatchards bookstore, and the lending library, and secretly visits her "visionary," and goes to social events with her twin and their friends.

Viscount Kerse has been watching Philomena for a while, at social events; she's unaware that he's one of the few who can reliably distinguish her from her identical twin, Thomasina. He's very attracted to her, but, unfortunately, he has a problem at home that he thinks would ruin the family reputation if it became known, so obviously he can't marry... But he's not willing to let Philomena run any risks when he realizes she's going regularly to a not very suitable neighborhood in Soho. They both wind up taking risks that could ruin their reputations, and this is all going on, and somewhat intertwined, with Victoria and Rhys's adventures.

These are light, fun, interesting stories, built around Christmas, friendship, and happy endings.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (más)

This is the first volume of Gaming Hell Christmas, stories about six women who attended Miss Greensley's School as young women, now older, out in society, and making decisions about the rest of their lives. It includes two novellas, the first featuring Miss Alexandra Blessing, beloved but illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Winsome, and the second about her dear friend, Annabelle, the widowed Lady Ranstruther.

Alexandra has lived with her father and his family since she was nine, and has six younger siblings. The two sisters still at home give her little peace, including happily disregarding the privacy of her own bedchamber. At 28, she doesn't expect to marry, but does want a home of her own.

Annabelle, after a year of widowhood following the death of her elderly and perhaps not very kind husband, Annabelle is ready for love and a happier life.

The stories take place over the same period of time, the Christmas season of 1796. These are Georgian stories, not Regencies, and while the legal status of women isn't any different, socially, they have just a little bit more freedom than they will in the Regency era. Thus, the ladies can, if discreet and careful, visit the exclusive gaming hell, la Sous Rose. And of course they do.

Alexandra's story focuses on the one hand, on Alexandra's desire, not to marry, but to have her own, quiet home. The Duke finds this shocking, but he does love her and want her to be happy. Yet intertwined with this is the death of the duke's first wife, assaulted and murdered, and whether or not the man hanged for the crime was actually the man guilty of it. At la Sous Rose, Alexandra meets Mr. Theodore Milburn, who has been raised by his uncle to believe the duke ruthlessly framed Theodore's innocent father, and that it's his duty to get revenge. The plan is to compromise one of the duke's daughters, to ruin her or force a marriage. It's too bad that Alexandra and Theodore Milburn find each other so attractive; surely this can't end well, right?

Annabelle's story follows her desire to find real love, and the determination of her stepson--years older than her--to take from her the dower inheritance she has from her husband, his father. He insists she and her father defrauded his father. Meanwhile, she meets again with a neighbor with property near her late husband's country property--William, Lord Deansley. Will Peter manage to ruin and impoverish her before she has a chance to find real happiness?

They're both enjoyable, Christmas season, historical romances, and the recurring characters helps build a sense of texture and reality--even if I'm not sure the intertwined timeline really works quite right. Regardless, I enjoyed both stories, and recommend them. There's also, of course, more coming in future volumes.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (más)