This month, we’re going Old Skool with our Book Club Pick, with Amanda Quick’s Scandal, one of the first romances I read. I remember seeing this one so clearly on the shelf and checking it out of the library multiple times. When I announced it last night at the book club chat with Jennifer Crusie, many people were most squeeful about it. This is going to be SO fun.
Not familiar with Scandal? Here, be tempted by this: From a stately country house in Hampshire to the dazzling drawing rooms of London society comes an exquisite tale of an elfin beauty, a vengeful lord, and a wild, sweet love that is sheer poetry.
With her reputation forever tarnished by a youthful indiscretion, lovely Emily Faringdon is resigned to a life of spinsterhood—until she embarks on an unusual correspondence and finds herself falling head over heels in love. Sensitive, intelligent, and high-minded, her noble pen pal seems to embody everything Emily has ever dreamed of in a man. But Simon Augustus Traherne, the mysterious Earl of Blade, is not at all what he seems.
Driven by dark, smoldering passions and a tragic secret buried deep within his soul, Blade has all of London cowering at his feet, but not Emily . . . never Emily. For even as she surrenders to his seductive charms, she knows the real reason for his amorous suit. And she knows that she must reach the heart of this golden-eyed dragon before the avenging demons of their entwined pasts destroy the only love she has ever known.
As usual, if you use SBTBARE at checkout, you will get a 50% eBook Bucks Rebate at AllRomance.com, the official sponsor of the Sizzling Book Club. You can also buy a copy at Amazon.com, or Book Depository, or wherever the books in your preferred format are sold.
Jane from Dear Author is going to join me in the book club chat – date to be determined – and we’ll talk about this book, as well as other older romances that never lose their lustre and power to charm us. I love this book and I’m so happy it’s been released digitally and is still in print in paperback so we can enjoy it. I’m aiming to have the book club chat in the third week of December, but tell me – before Christmas, or in the week between Christmas and New Year? What’s your preference?
I cannot wait to hear what you think of this book, or, if you’ve already read it, what you thought the second, third, fourth or fifth time around.
Oh, Old Skool Amanda Quick! Loved loved loved those, especially RAVISHED.
Have to go see if I’ve still got my copy of SCANDAL—or if *sniff* it was a casualty of one of our moves…
Scandal was one of my firsts, too! My “official” first was Jane Feather’s Virtue, but Scandal was second, followed by a Catherine Coulter with some pretty rape-tastic scenes. [I was on vacation in Key West with my family at age 13. We rented a house near the beach. The other family we were with had two older daughters who were beautiful, buxom and outgoing. Utterly intimidated since I was an awkward, flat-chested book nerd, I spent the vacation indoors, discovering romance novels, thanks to whoever had the house before us!]
Ooh, I love this book!! One of my first romance novels was Seduction – it was my mother’s. I only got back to Amanda Quick last year but then I got all these older books within a few weeks and devoured them.
Have to second Ravished!! Definitely one of my favorites. I regularly reread all these older Amanda Quick novels. Hmm, I might even have to think about getting them as ebooks.
I should love to take part in that discussion when you have it, but 9 pm Eastern US time is 2 am here, and I find myself less willing to stay up into the small hours than I used to be when young.
I remember how delighted I was when Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) first embarked on historicals in 1990. As a Heyer fan, I had been totally put off modern American Regency romances because of a few bad experiences with authors whose grasp of social history, Regency material culture, language and even English geography was sadly lacking, but I was confident that Jayne, whose witty and well-written contemporaries and ‘futuristic’ novels I had been thoroughly enjoying for several years, would do much better. I was right. 🙂
I hope that all of you who will be re-reading Scandal or reading it for the first time will have fun!
I’d vote for the week between Christmas and New Year’s just because I will be on sweet, sweet vacation, and could therefore show up for a chat at any time of the day. 😀
I love Amanda Quick’s older novels. I haven’t read her recent Arcane novels, cause I’m not a fan of jumping from historical to contemporary to futuristic, but her older novels are my ultimate comfort read. I reread them whenever I’m feeling a bit down.
Just an FYI, I purchased a bunch of her backlist as ebooks to replace my tattered paperbooks, and several books have major OCR problems. Scandal has only a few problems compared to some of the Quick books, like Dangerous which has numerous typos (or is it scannos). The biggest typo in the epub version of Scandal is that it’s missing a couple of sentences in the beginning of Chapter 16. Or maybe it was just in my copy, and it’s been fixed since I bought the book.
This is one of my favorite Amanda Quick’s and definitely a keeper! I’ll look forward to this discussion. Mine has the Pino stepback cover. Love that look.
Fun! I just reread my entire AQ collection (minus the newer Arcane books) over the summer.
I will get the e-copy because that’s a great coupon and my new Sony 650 is somewhere on the FedEx truck for delivery! (not that I have been obsessively checking the tracking info or anything the past few days).
fiscal22, yes it makes fiscal sense for me to have 2 copies of this book
Ooh I LOVE Scandal. I’ve reread it I don’t know how many times. Amanda Quick is my go to author when I’m feeling bad and having a crappy time of it. Ravished is my favorite. I have two copies, one is pristine because Jayne herself signed it.
I love the books Quick/Krentz wrote in this time period. (I’m less fond of her older and newer stuff.) Mistress is my absolute favorite, but this one is good, too.
This book is currently next to my bathtub. Fantastic bubble bath read. I can’t wait to hear what others think of it!
One of my favorites but the greatest Amanda Quick novels, in my opinion, are With This Ring and Ravished. God, I read those books too many times to count. Plus I’ve read all of her books that aren’t Arcane.
I have re-read all my Quick books so many times and I’m going to happily jump on this one again!
Dana, you can read the historical Arcane novels without having to read the contemporary or futuristic (although I did enjoy them).
I vote for the week between Christmas and New Years.
All my keepers, including AQ’s hardbacks, are packed away for storage so I’ll have to borrow this book from the library. I can remember checking out all of AQ’s hardbacks from the Army library in the Netherlands after I “discovered” romance. It was a treat to have so many books from one author to devour back to back.
Jayne Ann was the guest speaker at the RWA Awards luncheon this past summer. She gave us a humorous glimpse on how she survived the industry’s pitfalls and her own mistakes. After the crowd had dispersed, I found myself in the bathroom lounge, alone, with Jayne. Trying to remember convention etiquette, I briefly spoke to her. It was as if time stopped just for me to have that moment with Jayne.
Looking forward to this book chat!
I MUST delurk for this, just this once, because Ravished was my first ever proper romance (apart from an appalling Danielle Steel I read when I was way, way too young for it. I really should submit a HaBO for one of these days. That book haunts me… and not in a good way.) and my God, I don’t care if it’s ridiculous, I will love it forever because it got me started on the real deal. The friend who lent it to me and I still laugh about the “Oops! We’re trapped in a smuggler’s cave for the night, whatever shall we do?!” sex they have because the heroine is trying to protect her fossils. Amazing. Thank you, Amanda Quick.
Sorry, I meant to add, therefore I can only imagine Scandal is as enjoyable, so I’ll definitely be participating!
Oh how awesome! I have all of the old skool Quick’s in storage at my parents house. Must see if my darling mother will dig them out for me so I can pick them up when we go up in a few weekends. I just read a few of her Arcane society novels from the library and found them quite enjoyable. 🙂
Quick is one of my go to comfort reads. Any time a cold comes near, I bat it away with Amanda Quick silliness. Miss that humor in her newer books. Old Skool silliness! Rah!
Am I the only one who didn’t like this book?
This could be because I’m not used to Old Skool romance and this was rather Old Skool, with an angry hero who used sex as punishment and a heroine who was freaking desperate to gain his affections even when he was being an ass. there were parts that were good, but not enough to redeem it. it is currently in my To Be Sold pile. (anyone want it? half price)
I did like Rendezvous, which was cute, and Surrender was pretty good too.
And I love all of the covers. they’re so pretty
LOVE LOVE LOVE Old Skool Amanda Quick! I have an entire shelf of colorful AQ books! I never gave any of them away! Definitely going to reread this one.
I love the early Amanda Quick novels and think this is a really good one. My favourite is Dangerous but I’ve read all of them more times than I can remember.
I’ve got all the Arcane novels too and don’t mind them so much but there was a time when the words ‘late in the reign of Queen Victoria’ caused my heart to sink when I opened a new Amanda Quick. I’m just not into the Victorian era, it doesn’t have the romance of the Regency Period for me. Then again I live in a Victorian City, in a Victorian House and I’m surrounded by Victorian furniture so perhaps it’s not ‘distant’ enough from where I’m standing lol. I do agree that her recent books have lost some of the spark of the earlier ones. Still buy them though, too much of a JAK fan not too.
Argh, my library has every possible Amanda Quick in every format, except for this one! (Boy she has a lot of one word titles) Hopefully the other local library system has it.
Either week is fine with me for the chat.
My copy- it is a mess. But like Darlene Marshall it has the Pino art- love that.
I can’t wait to hear what others remember about their first Amanda Quick book. For me it was that her heroines all had ‘quirks’.
I’m very excited because this will be my first Amanda Quick! I have Ravished in my TBR pile, but I’ll read this one first.
I ordered it via PaperBackSwap this morning. The member’s bookshelf where it’s coming from is like Old Skool heaven. I’ve never seen so much hair or so many unbuttoned, but still tucked-in shirts in one place before!
My god, is this book old skool? How the hell did 1990 get to be 20 years ago? I remember Amanda Quick as being a part of a new wave of romance – you could tell by the boobless cover. This was romance you didn’t have to be ashamed to read. It is, incidentally, my boyfriend’s favorite. I made him promise to read half a dozen romances so he’d be able to mock them accurately. He’s thus far read a Heyer, a Roberts, a Krentz (Quick), and a Crusie. I’m not positive which Quick I gave him, actually it might not have been this one, it was whichever is the thinnest. I find her novels to be all the same in the best possible way. Historical, contemporary, futuristic – it’s the same (fun) story and characters each time.
LOVE that you are doing old school!!! I vote for Mon/Tues/Wed AFTER Christmas.
YES. It’s a popular old skool romance. I can probably get it through my library. ::does happy dance:: I read her first Arcane Society novel, Second Sight, and really enjoyed it. If she’s even better in Old Skool form, I will be happy. I should read some of the others I have on my shelf. I have the Poison Arcane Society novel (can’t think of what the exact title is), The Paid Companion, and The Wicked Widow. Gosh.
I’m just excited that I’ll be able to actually READ this!!
YAY. I AM SO THERE.
Sheesh! Do ya’ll make me feel old! The first Amanda Quick book I read was the first Amanda Quick book—Seduction. I have purchased and read each in the order in which it was published, because I was already a fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, Jayne Castle, Stephanie James, Amanda Glass, etc. My favorites are Seduction, Surrender, Deception, Mistress, the Lydia/Tobias trilogy, The Perfect Poison . . . I liked Scandal too, but the others appeal to me more.
For those who enjoyed Ravished, you might also like The Family Way, a JAK Harlequin Temptation, which has similar motifs [motives?].
Kay
Ashley, you are not alone! I thought the cover was the best thing about this book. Maybe I read it, Surrender, Ravished and Rendevous too close togther, but they just seemed very repetetive, and I wasn’t charmed by the hero.
thank God! i thought i was the only one that didn’t care for Danielle Steele. I read one book by her in which the female protagonist (will not call her heroine) had an affair with a 70+ year old man. It almost put me off romances, but then i read a Nora and my faith was restored.
I downloaded a copy of Scandal last night after the chat, and I will be starting it soon. I’m in the mood for something Christmas-sy so i think i’m going to start to Lisa Klepas that I downloaded on Friday.
This is my second favorite Quick!! Like many others, Ravished is my all time favorite and I frequently reread it when I need a brain cleanse between writers or genres. Kind of takes me back to the beginning of my romance reading.
I’m sure I’ve read SCANDALbefore because I read every Amanda Quick published in the 90s but like many others RAVISHED is the one that made it onto my keeper shelf. I’m looking forward to the discussion, good excuse to re-read and oldie!
My mom introduced me to Amanda Quick. We read them all. I have the entire collection now. I will search for Scandal. This should be a great book discussion!
R.I.P., Mom!!! 😉
bed78…….that’s where I’m headed….
Scandal’s one of my favorites!
Can’t wait for the book club.
Ashley, I’m completely with you on this. I did a little research and decided that I will not read any pre-1993 Amanda Quicks for this very reason. I LOVE post 1993s, with the humor and the charmingly strident independence of the female protagonists, but anything before that is totally a no-go. Sex as anything other than happy and by consent totally turns me off. Old Skool is super UGH.
word ver: wish39. I wish to the 39th power that I never see another “hero” rapes heroine (and she likes it) romance again.
.. and guess what? either AQ/JAK or her agent or publisher or some smart combo of that lot have got their act together – this one IS available in Kindle form to Australia! How utterly spiffing to be able to read SBTB, totter over to Amazon and in a minute (just like I rooollly rooollly dreamed might be possible) have the book right there, ready to read. Hurrah!
(having whinged on this point previously, it’s only fair to give credit when it’s due. Now if only a few more authors/agents/publishers got their acts in gear…Meljean, wouldja get your Iron Duke sorted??)
‘Scuse me while I go off and brush the dust off my Kindle.
Um, how do I switch it on again???!!!
(code is normal62 – if only this Kindle experience was the normal one, instead of the exception!)
Oh, I’ve just been re-reading my JAK collection (as I realised I’ve developed a dreadful addiction to home decorating magazines for train reading to and from work). I have 3 packing boxes of the little suckers. Thanks to those on the other thread who raved about Gideon as hero material in Ravished. That was today’s pick. Scandal will be next now.
vote for week between Xmas and NY as it will be the only time I can join in the chat. Had to do a incredibly depressing cull of my books as I had 2 moves in 3 months from one end of Australia to the other and could take everything, but all my Amanda/Jayne books are still with me. I reread them often as they are my happy/comfort reads
Ooh, love the old Amanda Quick books.
Mytisque is my favorite—Hugh the Relentless LOL
Haven’t read any of her books in a few years though. I grew tired of the standard formula; stoic, alpha hero, innocent but inquisitive heroine, villain always directly connected to the heroine.