Debra Mullins

I reviewed this book for Romance Reader At Heart website:


RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

This story opens with our hero and heroine heading off to a house party in the country, while Captain Samuel Breedlove and Priscilla, his new bride, are off on their honeymoon. Before they depart, Samuel asks John to watch over Annabelle Bailey, who was apparently kidnapped by the villain, Lord Raventhorpe, and might still be in danger. Priscilla, on the other hand, is worried about her sister Genny, so she asks him to watch over her as well.

While he'd happily accommodate his best friend, Priscilla's wish bothers John as he thinks Genny's a big flirt, and he thought he'd be glad to see the last of her at the wedding. You can imagine his surprise when he finds out that for the foreseeable future, they'll be in the country for the same party.

As for our heroine, she thinks John's too forward in his manner and ways for the coachman, but naturally, John's not who everyone thinks him to be.

This is a well written and well executed romance. There is plenty to recommend it. All the characters were three-dimensional; intrigues and villainy abounds; and I must admit to some interesting, yet predictable, twists and turns that were quite entertaining. Still, I felt the author didn't quite do such a great job in developing the relationship between the hero and the heroine. I liked them separately. Their characters were fully developed, but their back and forth sort of left me a bit cold. For some reason, their relationship didn't click for me.

As the novel picks up where TEMPTING A PROPER LADY left off, for the most part of this read, I was lost. Without reading the previous novel, most of this story's plot made no sense to me, and it took me awhile to decipher who's who and what's what. Eventually it all fell into place, but alas, too late for me to enjoy it fully.

From the prologue of this tale, I had a feeling that I should have read the first book of this trilogy. If you've read the previous book, I'm sure you'll appreciate this story more than I have. It has everything a historical romance should--a very likeable hero with a secret identity, a flirtatious but untrusting heroine, and a bloodcurdling villain who'll do anything to destroy them all.

Melanie… (meer)

An ancient curse proclaims them to be fated but it's not quite as simple as that. The hero was in love with another when his fated bride is found but he selflessly put aside his own happiness to save his people from starvation. As the clan he leads is in a famine when the previous bride refused to wed the laird. The hero travels to England and the second he sees the girl he's to marry, he instantly doesn't think fate is all that bad. The heroine lives in constant fear that her mothers madness will consume her so she desperately seeks a husband before her secret comes out. She fights the hero tooth and nail because a, she doesn't believe in the curse, and b, she's afraid of her own feelings. But when the madness begins to affect her, she has no choice but to go to Scotland to seek out a cure. This book was a roller-coaster. I spent the fight 2/3rds of the book hating the heroine. She was stupidly stubborn and selfish and possessed absolutely no regard for anyone but herself. The hero was unrelenting in his pursuit of her and wouldn't ever take no for an answer but finally it all builds and builds inside of him and he snaps at. He tells her she's selfish and while she's complaining she has to wed a hot, Scottish laird, people are dying. After that confutation, the whole story changed. She recognizes her faults and tries to be better though she still doesn't believe in the curse, she's willing to see the man for what he is. At some point I began to believe her. It's a little crazy that she's expected to go a foreign land and wed a stranger all because of a birthmark. When she doesn't instantly marry him, every single thing that goes wrong in the whole village is blamed on her. She gets yelled at and threatened so much that it's the hero who actually defends her. The curse is real but they're let it consume their lives and when she does marry him, the villagers begin to understand that not everything can be given to them. That sometimes bad things happen to good people. I absolutely loved the chemistry between the characters when it isn't until almost the end that it's even hinted at deeper feelings. The hero still cares for the girl who turned him away and the heroine's still reluctant to marry him. I didn't really like that aspect but overall it's an engaging story because it makes you feel for the characters.… (meer)

A textbook example of the difficulties and dangers of mixing plain-vanilla romance with murder mystery.

On the one hand we have the romance: Anna has been all but betrothed to Marc, Earl of Haverford, since she was a little girl. The marriage is a perfect arrangement for both families and Anna is prepared to go with the flow—until she meets Rome Devereaux, Marc's cousin. Anna and Rome are instantly attracted to one another, but both are indebted and honour-bound to Marc. What to do?

On the other hand, a dastardly secret society calling itself The Black Rose is leaving an inordinate number of dead bodies in town and country, all young men who had connections to the society and ended up run through with a sword. Anna's twin brother is one of them, and she's determined to solve the mystery of his death. Rome has promised a dying colleague-in-arms to look after his reckless brother, who seems to have got himself involved in the Black Rose.

Anna and Rome grope, gasp and pant in blissful, guilt-ridden agony while the body count grows. When Peter, the reckless moron whom Rome has vowed to protect, ends up skewered in a back street, the story rushes to a climax.

Sadly, there isn't much of a climax. As with so many authors who haven't plotted the narrative with care and precision, the loose ends and plot holes have to be pushed out of the way with a swashbuckling sword fight and a totally ludicrous revelation. Ludicrous and hurtful, in that the apprehension of the 'real' villain leaves one of the most sympathetic characters in the story in terrible distress, her agony brushed aside as the fanfares sound for the contrived happy ending.

Being a great conspiracy fan, I was drawn to this book by the 'secret society' metatag. Sadly the Black Rose is a pathetic caricature of an evil secret society, probably drawn from half-remembered Sherlock Holmes or Jack the Ripper books and movies.

… (meer)