Whip Smart: Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (Whip Smart, #2) by Kit Brennan


Whip Smart: Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (Whip Smart, #2)
Title : Whip Smart: Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (Whip Smart, #2)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1938231724
ISBN-10 : 9781938231728
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 286
Publication : First published September 1, 2013

Kit Brennan’s frothy, sexy second in the Whip Smart Series opens with the gorgeous, ever-headstrong Lola Montez careening around Europe, on the run from the haunting memories of Spain and the wild adventure that nearly cost her life. It is 1844. Lola encounters celebrated pianist and composer Franz Liszt at a concert near Dresden, and he encourages her to set her sights on Paris to establish her dancing career. The night that Lola performs her racy Spider Dance at the Paris Opéra, she meets quite possibly the man of her dreams: the co-owner of La Presse Newspaper and best friend of novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas, whose recent novels about three musketeers and a certain Count of Monte Cristo are running concurrently in newspaper serialization. Lola seems on the verge of breaking Victorian tradition and actually having it all, but forces are at work to foil her designs. Shadowy figures will stop at nothing to sabotage Lola’s new endeavour (unheard of for a woman): to pen an adventure novel about a feisty female character...using a nom de plume. In the heady atmosphere of Parisian writers, artists and courtesans, with reckless duels fought over every small slight, will Lola survive to find true love and the career of her dreams?

Whip Smart: Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (Whip Smart, #2) Reviews

  • vvb

    The story of Lola and her spunky attitude and antics continue during the Victorian times. In this instance, we are taken to France. She has brushes with historical figures such as George Sand, Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin. I find it a delight when little interactions and trivial details of such persons are described to enlighten us on their personality.

    I was especially taken with one chapter which described a duel. The art of dueling, implications, and history were touched upon to peak the interest.

    The main character's observations and comments on writing and being a writer were also topics that I took to heart.

  • Kristen

    I really enjoyed the first book in this series, but unfortunately, book 2 not so much, and did not end up finishing it.

    What I loved about the first book was that Lola's adventures were diverse, with a combination of history, adventure and romance. In the 150 pages of the second book I made it through, the focus seemed to be completely on Lola's sex life. I don't mind some sex in the books I read, but when that's all there is in a story, I get bored fast.

    There were some fun inclusions of historical figures - like composer Liszt and author George Sand - who had interesting cameos that I enjoyed but overall the uninterrupted focus on who Lola was having sex with and how just wasn't interesting enough for me to stick with this book. I wanted to like this one because I really loved the first book, and I'm sorry that I didn't.

  • Laura

    I am so curious about Montez as a person - light easy historical fiction. It made me want to learn more about this character enough to read the others in this series despite the fact that I did not love the writing.

  • Erin

    I feel really badly that I didn't care for this book but I didn't. I don't read much romance but I'm starting to, and I bought this hoping it would be something I could get into, but although I stuck it out, I just couldn't get past page forty, and Ive decided life is too short to read books you don't really like.

    Also I found the title a bit condescending. "Whip smart" is something you call an intelligent child, not a grown woman.

  • Melissa Polk

    Lola Montez is back and in the middle of another adventure in the second book of the Whip Smart series. The beginning of this book totally caught me with the introduction of Franz Liszt and George Sand (two historical characters I am passing fond of). It was a fun romp through bedrooms and ballrooms. Scandal and intrigue happen and Lola finds herself in France. I felt that the story lagged here. Lola was vibrant as ever but it felt very much like a "same old, same old" kind of situation. She wants to be a dancer, doesn't quite cut it, falls in love with a handsome man, more intrigue, death, broken heart, a horse to remember him by. Just as I was feeling let down by this, the story ramps up with maniacs, graveyard fights, and Alexander Dumas finally seen in a better light.

    It was a fun and fast read. We got to know her so well in the first book that her actions and choices are very familiar to us as readers. Even still, the story beyond her romances is captivating and worth every page.

  • Janet Cameron

    Okay, I’m addicted to this series. Like its predecessor, The Poisoned Nom de Plume delivers the same kind of headlong narrative rush I remember from stories I loved as a kid, but with a distinctly adult sensibility and humour.

    After causing scandals all over Europe, our heroine arrives in Paris to conquer the capital and ends up settling into domestic bliss instead – for a time. But for Lola, ‘settling down’ still involves intrigue, chases on horseback, assassination attempts, literary jealousies, a duel at sunrise and some unforgettable sex. Lola is an engaging and endearingly flawed young heroine, full of bluster and vulnerability; as a Spanish noblewoman she’s a fraud, but she’s worked so hard to make the identity her own that I found I was rooting for her all the way. This is a historical novel that reads like a serial adventure and romance. Normally when I read historical fiction part of me is restless, wondering how close it is to the truth. But I think I’d prefer this version over the straight facts any day.