Ian has what I think is supposed to be Aspergers Syndrome, or a similar condition. The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie Protector A detail in the books’ favour is that they are set in my preferred clothing period (bustles!) which adds a frisson of joy to my reading experience. The Mackenzies are intense, insanely rich, scandalously behaved, and frequently kilted. As is often the case, the last book features the most forbidding of the men the one you can’t imagine rooting for, or whose arrogance and aloofness is nigh on insurmountable. Damaged in a way that in real life creates drug addicts, madmen, or living in the metaphorical fetal position for years at a time. The Mackenzie brothers’ father was a fu*king monster who murdered their mother and was psychotically abusive towards his sons. When she is good she is very, very good, but when she is bad, she is horrid. The spoilers will help get my point across and, more importantly, the endings are foregone conclusions, so how much can I ruin anyway? Here is what you need to know about Jennifer Ashley: These books each have an exhaustively tortured hero. Unless you are reading one of the really good authors, the psychological issues are not particularly realistic and seemingly easy to overcome.īut let’s move on to the more fun kaleidoscope of spoilers and annoyance with the author part of the review. Traumatized soldiers and child abuse survivors are common. MANY of the characters have sleep issues in these books and PTSD comes up a fair amount, too. The Tortured Hero moves through the other stories and, depending on your taste, can be as thoroughly or as gently tortured as is your preference. So you take one of these two men, make him either wry or laconic, and match him to one, or more, of these storylines: The Reformation of the Rake The Awakening of the Wallflower The Revenge Plot The Marriage of Convenience (including The Road Trip and Intrigue or Mystery) or The Tortured Hero or Heroine. The Protector is a warrior: probably taciturn, very kind, gentle, and uncommonly stalwart. The Rakes are generally charming, dry, seemingly indolent, and very experienced. If the hero is sardonic and calls the heroine “Sweetheart”, I am SO IN. I prefer a “reformed rake who will make the best husband” myself, with an occasional big lug thrown in for variety. If, for some heretofore unimaginable reason, I was asked to, I could slide down The Shameful Tally and instantly assign Rake/Protector status to all of the heroes listed.

The hero is either a Rake or a Protector.

There are only two romance genre hero types and a few storylines.

The madness of lord ian mackenzie read