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Jack Fortescu, duque de Saint Jules, está decidido a vengarse de Frederick Lacey, el hombre que denunció a su hermana Charlotte a la securité de Robespierre. Para ello, organiza una partida de cartas en la que Lacey se juega todos sus bienes, incluida la mansión que posee a las afueras de Londres. Jack gana y Frederick, arruinado se suicida. Pero en la mansión vive la hermanastra de Lacey, la joven y segura Arabella, quien lleva una vida campestre dedicada al cultivo de orquídeas, alejada de la vida mundana de Londres. Como parte de su plan, el apuesto duque le propone un matrimonio de conveniencia para que la joven no tenga que abandonar la casa. Arabella acepta fascinada por el misterioso duque. Sin embargo, descubrirá que entre ellos se alza un muro inaccesible y Arabella luchará por develar ese pasado secreto que tanto atormenta a Jack.

Lite fluff, but good story line ( )

Really more in the realm of two and half. This book suffers greatly from the hero just being not even little bit likable for 9/10ths of the book. Maybe for the whole book. He's not irredeemably awful. I just don't like him. As a person. (Well, as a character.) And the heroine is fine? She's not awful, but she's not inspiring either.

Not to mention that I just didn't feel like this story had the right pacing. At all.

( )

A fascinating, intriguing, irritating and annoying historical romance. I have no idea why the author decided to put the Epilogue at the beginning of the book. Beginning with the ending might have worked with classic TV series such as Perry Mason and Colombo, but it doesn’t work with period romances in which the author builds the tension to a climactic happy ending.

My knowledge of the complexities of British aristrocracy comes from reading hundreds of historical romances and a couple of Wikipedia articles. All of these seem to agree on precedence and forms of address. For some reason Ms Feather ignores basic rules of title capitalisation and her characters aren’t sure whether to address a duke as ‘Duke’, ‘Sir’, or ‘Grace’.

Otherwise this tale of a haunted and traumatised duke winning the estates and possessions of his nemesis and then proposing marriage to the loser’s sister is tremendous fun. All the stock characters of an off-the-shelf HR are there: the moody, handsome, arrogant and mysterious hero and the intelligent, sharp-witted and eloquent heroine. A doting, loyal girlfriend and a bunch of drunken cronies.

For all the warts, I truly enjoyed this book. The change of scene from England to Paris in the aftermath of the bloody revolution was particularly well written. ( )