Rules of Surrender

The Rules of Surrender by Christina Dodd captured my full attention from the first page. I had a wonderful time reading this story. There are so many interesting and exciting characters in the book. You never know quite what Wynter or his children will say next.Lady Charlotte Dalrumple is a lady who is down on her luck. She and two friends have opened a business and Adorna Ruskin is their first customer. Adorna needs a paragon of propriety to teach her grandchildren how to behave correctly in polite society. Charlotte is more than qualified for the position hence her nickname "Ms. Priss". Lord Wynter Ruskin has just returned from El Bahar a desert country. He has apparently lost all of his gentlemanly qualities. To make matters worst his two children are wild knife throwing hellions.Charlotte is both fascinated and awed by Wynter but she is determined to do her duty. She will not let Wynter and his children prevent her from instructing them in correct behavior. Wynter is determined that Charlotte will become his future wife while she adamantly refuses.The story is wonderful and the characters eventually realize they love each other more than anything. Some of the scenes in the story are absolutely hysterical. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Christina Dodd delivers -- as usual -- a terrific story, the first in her new "governess" series. Her heroine, Lady Charlotte, is just the woman to deal with Lord Wynter, an untamed barbarian who must re-learn the rules of polite society. Yet when he meets the beautiful yet very proper governess, Lord Wynter starts making some plans of his own. I particularly enjoyed the unusual supporting cast of characters in this novel -- Lord Wynter's lovable meddling mother Adorna, and his delightful, free-spirited children -- all of whom made "Rules of Surrender" a marvelous read. I highly recommend this novel as one of the best I've read all year.

I truly enjoyed this particular book. It was a typical romance plot line (a lord falls for his children's governess, she is really a lady in hiding, they marry), but with very atypical characters.The hero, Wynter, is a bit of a dunderhead when it comes to romance. He knows he wants Charlotte as his wife, but won't recognize the admiration, repect, and attraction he feels for her as love. Charlotte is attracted to Wynter from the get go, but relies on her governess credos to tamp down her curiosity and interest in her employer, as the last thing she wants is to lose her job.Throughout the book, Wynter continues his pursuit of his, as he sees it, inevitable wife, and Charlotte continues to attempt to evade him. But through a nice touch of character developement, the reader is treated to an understanding of what the hero and heroine feel towards each other, and most importantly, why they feel that way. Too often in romance novels, the actual qualities of the hero's and heroine's personalities that would realistically drive a mutual attraction are overlooked and brushed aside for the more basic (and less complex, thus easier to write) physical attractions. My favorite novels always have included physically imperfect main characters, with a fleshed out personality such that the reader can see a lasting stability to the romance.As for Wynter's persistance and eventual marriage to Charlotte, I could understand her reluctance despite how she loved him and his children, but I could also envy her for being pursued so ardently. If she could make him understand the principles behind the emotion of love, she would have herself a remarkable and lasting marriage.The scene following the wedding, where the two consummate their relationship, I fear other readers may have misunderstood. It was not a rape, but a fight between principles and desire. They both wanted each other, but each wanted a different set of terms underlying the marriage. She wanted respect and acknowledgement as an individual, and he wanted her to fall into the role of a Bedouin wife - adoring, blissful, taken care of, but not taken into consideration. Charlotte could have stopped Wynter at any point in that scene, merely by screaming, or crying, or indicating in any way true distress or fear. But instead she tussled and fought to make her point, enjoying the combat as much as he did. And as she resigned herself to the one-sided relationship, she still was able to give him a dose of his own medicine, such that he inevitably came to his senses (with some help from his own children).The secondary characters and plot lines were well developed, as so often these things are more irritating distractions than a true piece of the main story-line. Sure, we lost track of the children for a while there, and certain bits which were surely meant to have been important to the main story-line intitaily sort of fizzled out instead, but I none-the-less enjoyed t

Lady Charlotte Dalrumple has been known to have the magic touch with difficult debutantes. So nobody is surprised when a lovely viscountess offers to pay her a large sum to whip her half-savage grandchildren into shape. But she is shocked speechless when she meets the children's father, who has lived among the Bedouin most of his adult life. . . and then discovers that the real reason she was brought there was to tutor HIM in the social graces!Unfortunately, Lord Wynter Ruskin seems to anticipate her every move and find a thousand different reasons to proclaim the Bedouin way of doing things more civilized than the British. The corset, for example. He is determined to get Lady Charlotte out of hers, for he has decided that she will be his next wife.Lady Charlotte, however attracted physically to Lord Ruskin, scorns the Bedouin idea that men do not love their wives. She fears being trapped in a loveless marriage and taken for granted by her husband. . . as more of a possession than a mate. Although it is obvious that Lord Ruskin does indeed love her--some men do seem to have difficulty saying the words women want to hear--Lady Charlotte is right to insist upon it. It isn't until Lord Ruskin sees how much her unhappiness upsets him that he realizes that he does indeed love her. . . and that the Bedouin who taught him otherwise was a coward who never knew what he missed.Christina Dodd has done it again. . . a truly delicious romance with a nice mixture of sensuality and humor. You won't want to put it down!

Read this book!But don't start it if you have to work the next day because you'll be up all night. I liked Charlotte a lot, she was feisty and very proper. The children were good, especially Leila who made trouble without meaning to. Wynter was the best. He thought men were better than women, and it was funny watching Charlotte teach him differently. Also, it was good to see Adorna from THAT SCANDALOUS EVENING get her own romance. Great stuff!