It Happened One Night by Stephanie LaurensMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It Happened One Night is a four stories about four couples who haven’t seen each other in a long time (like ten years-ish) and they spend one night together, one beautiful, incredible night together, and then they go off on their happily ever afters. I quite like the premise of the stories, and all of the authors coming together to create the same thing, but different couples? I love that. So for this review, I’m going to break the stories down, because the titles sound like D&D stories, honestly.
The Fall of Rouge Gerrard: This story was written by Stephanie Laurens, and shockingly, no acid damage or people dying happened in the making of this story. Basically this one is about a man named Gerrard who all around England is called the Rouge Gerrard. He stops at an country inn to rest for a night, when he sees Lydia Makepeace there. Why was Lydia Makepeace there? Well, she’s trying to get into someone’s house to retrieve a letter for her sister. Well of course he had to go to protect her, to make sure no one finds out about them, and they sneak in (Lydia pretending to be a courtesan) and they go into the office to look around. They found it before the owner of the house showed up, but at least they made out before the spice happened. At the end, they went back to the inn and made love again, and the next morning Lydia’s sister and their parents appeared, and oh boy, was Lydia embarrassed. But at the end, after trying to get Ro to not marry her….her parents and sister is just like, ‘It took y’all THIS long to get together? THIS LONG?!” but at the end, Lydia said yes, and the story throughout the ton of how the Rouge Gerrard fell.
Spellbound: Now this story is one hell of a mess. Picture it: you’re sitting in the inn, having a drink, and your partner, whom you haven’t seen in a LONG time, walks in and they’re penniless, don’t even have no money, and they’re basically about to be turned away when you get up and walk up to that inn keeper, and you say bravely, having NO IDEA what or why or HOW this happened, but you say, as clear as day, ‘That’s my partner/wife/husband.’ Well that’s what happened when Richard Kemp saw his wife Nora walking in the inn and was about to be turned around. Holy hell this is a second chance story, and it was pretty good. Nora was shocked to see said husband, because she remembered her father saying that she’s not married to this man anymore. But she finds out that she was actually still his wife after everything her father had done to them, and after that, they ran off and lived happily ever after.
Only You (cw: abuse): This one might have to be one my favorites, because it’s about old friends who hasn’t seen each other in a long time, and they spent the whole day together. They learn a lot about each other-Cassandra is a survivor of abuse, both physical and mental abuse, and she’d never had a night of romance, where she can experience someone truly making love, asking questions like, “Is this what ecstasy feels like?” or “Is this what real happiness feel like?” and I ended up crying. Because no one should go through what she went though. She even told Ethan that her husband thought coming to her was a chore, and when she couldn’t conceive, he basically cheated on her and had gotten so many of his mistresses pregnant, and I think he flaunted them in front of her, making her feel worse. And Ethan-sweet, inn owning Ethan. He actually had a life after Cassandra’s father threw him out and gave him the scar. He went to the war to stop Napoleon, he took the inn off the hands off an old friend, and he stood up to Cassandra’s father who was going to slap her. But honestly, this was a sweet story and I’m glad it was written.
From This Moment On: How to sum up this story...let’s say Victor and Nikki (yep, I know who that is thanks to my grandmama) haven’t seen each other in ten years. They see each other again, and Nikki plans all these funny things (breaking a wheel twice, second time letting the pigs run through and stomping on the wheel) just so they can spend one last day together. Well all of that happened and more-with Wilhelmina and Sam. This must be one of my favorite stories of all time throughout this book, because it’s about a second chance romance. I liked how Willie had fears about Sam’s feelings because she’s a demimonde/courtesan, and she turned him down after their night of passion. Sam, confused as hell, tried to tell her that it wasn't the case, but she didn’t want to hear it. Then at the end, while going their separate ways, somehow Willie’s horse got lame because of the horseshoes...that Sam rigged himself. And, like all the stories, they rode off to their happily ever after.
I’ve read this book a long time ago, like back in middle/high school, and I haven’t thought about this book until now, and I’m so glad that I read it now, because these stories, though different, were pretty damned good, just like the first time I read it when I was in middle/high school.
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