This book is one of those unexplained mysteries to me. On a bunch of levels I should’ve hated this book and dropped it into my “did not finish” pile. But I just couldn’t seem to do it. Even though Westin’s style is a little more melodramatic than I usually like and the story seemed to have a lot of historical romance cliches, this book still managed to keep my attention until near the end. And by then I had less than 100 pages to go so I figured, "What the hell. I might as well finish."

When we meet Lady Anne in the book she’s being a naughty bird, by sneaking off for a little heavy petting with her fiancé. But that plan goes down the toilet when she overhears her fiancé telling King Charles that he can have Anne’s virginity in exchange for land and money. Anne isn’t happy about this so she flees to her father’s house where she tells him everything she heard. Her father is, of course, pissed at this news and immediately starts to devise a way to get Anne out of her engagement.

His brilliant plot? Hand over his precious daughter and her virginity to John Gilbert, a handsome highway man known for his bedroom skills. Daddy is obviously a genius. So he dashes off to stop John’s hanging and offer him a deal. In exchange for a reprieve from the noose John has to keep Anne out of danger until the engagement is all cleared up. So John decides that dealing with Anne is better than death so agrees and takes her to his Robin Hood-ish hideout in the forest.

What really bothered me in this book was how linear the problems were all solved. Towards the end I got bored with how neatly John and Anne were dealing with all these problems, even though they all where related to each other and could lead back to one thing/person. But some how they managed to never touch each other and were all solved one. At. A. Time.

I also had some minor pet peeves within the story. The biggest one of those being how John and Anne had whole conversations with only their eyes. It went something along the lines of ‘Because they were so well connected they needn’t words to talk. Anne looked at him and her eyes said “I love you” and he looked at her and his eyes said “I know. Don’t worry.”’ And the “conversation” didn’t stop there. They actually had a whole dialog going at one point during a ride in a carriage.

Anyway, despite all my complaining about this book I still enjoyed bits and parts of it and the characters were fun. ( )

Lady Anne Gascoigne thinks she's in love with her fiancé until she overhears him and the king discussing the king stealing her virtue. Then she decides that she has to find another husband, one who will save her from the King. He's only really interested if she's a virgin so a wedding night should take care of his interests.

It's quite fun, nothing too deep, but the characters are fun and interesting. ( )

headless woman cover