ONCE UPON A WINTER'S EVER by Tessa DareWhere To Find Tessa: Author Site | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | The Ballroom Blog
FORMAT: PDF
GENRE: Historical
FILE SIZE: 258 KB (about 110 pages)
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (November 15,2011)
ISBN: 978609288822
Some wallflowers bloom at night...
A Spindle Cove Novella
Violet Winterbottom is a quiet girl. She speaks six languages, but seldom raises her voice. She endured bitter heartbreak in perfect silence. The gentlemen aren't beating down her door.
Until the night of the Spindle Cove Christmas ball, when a mysterious stranger crashes into the ballroom and collapses at Violet's feet. His coarse attire and near-criminal good looks would put any sensible young lady on her guard. He's wet, chilled, bleeding, and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue.
Only Violet understands him. And she knows he's not what he seems.
She has one night to draw forth the secrets of this dangerously handsome rogue. Is he a smuggler? A fugitive? An enemy spy? She needs answers by sunrise, but her captive would rather seduce than confess. To learn his secrets, Violet must reveal hers—and open herself to adventure, passion, and the unthinkable... Love. (source)
Where To Buy: Kindle | Nook | Samhain
Book Extras: Book Page
I loved it! |
REVIEW(may contain spoilers, read at your own risk):
You know, I've got stop taking peeks at some of these books I've been getting until I'm done reading older review books. But who am I to resist the temptation of a Tessa Dare story? Obviously, I keep coming back for more, like that poor girl, Violet Winterbottom. I don't know when to quit and I'm glad I didn't. My self restraint is as good as Lord Christian Pierce's, barely non-existent. At least when it come to the lovely Violet.
Violet Winterbottom gave everything away to The Disappointment a year ago and he left her with a note, 26 stinking words! Since then, she's been trying to get over him and now that she finally sort of has, He comes back into her life in the form of an injured crazed man, washed on to the shores of Spindle Cove.
Violet is very surprised when the man bursts through the door during the winter ball, babbling incoherently and grabs for her dress. Since she has a knack for languages, Lord Rycliff (the hero of A Night to Surrender) asks her what the man is saying. He keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. His name, where he's from, what he does and the fact he knows nothing.
As she sits and waits on what Rycliff will do with the man, Violet must try to get information out of him. Violet soon realizes that this man is none other than The Disappointment aka Lord Christian Pierce, third son of the Duke of Winford. The same man who she gave her heart and her virtue to and was left only a note to remember him by, never to hear from him ever again. At first, she tries to get him to confess to who he really is, telling him why she's in Spindle Cove. Then when the truth comes out, everything is laid out on the table: their feelings for one another, where he's been all this time, why he left, why she only got a note and how long she's been into him.
I kept waiting for Violet to go all The Princess Bride whenever Christian kept repeating that he was just a farmhand. "Oh farmboyyy!" *giggle*
FAVORITE QUOTE: "And that was how Miss Violet Winterbottom, habitual wallflower, found herself in Sir Lewis Finch's Egyptian-themed library, keeping vigil with a hobbled youth, a tavern keeper, and an unconscious man who just might be a spy." (***quote subject to change in finished copy***)
OVERALL: Action, adventure, romance, a pistol packing heroine with a penchant for languages, a humble farmhand who isn't really a farmhand and a winter's eve that will live forever in the minds of the residents of Spindle Cove. Oh, did I mention all of this took place in one night? Yes, Tessa Dare has packed such a wonderful, intriguing, heart tugging read in the space of one night, all neatly wrapped in a story of a second chance at love. Now, I shall dive back into Spindle Cove with A Night to Surrender since I haven't gotten around to it.
***review copy provided by Tessa Dare***