Customer Reviews

Borrowed Dreams

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Five years ago, after her husband was killed, Millicent Wentworth went about trying to right all the wrongs her husband commited. Millicent knew from experience exactly what the slaves had to endure at the hands of her brutal husband. Given into marriage by her uncle who only wanted to get rid of her, Millicent was more than relieved to become a widow. Then her husband's creditor, Jasper Hyde, started calling in her debts. When the dowager countess of Aytuon requests that she marry her son in return for all her debts to be paid, Millicent's refuses, for she knows she can never endure being a man's possession again. When the dowager talks her into it, Millicent has no idea how much her husband will come to mean to her, or how wrong for him she is.

Lyon Pennington, Earl of Aytuon didn't care one way or another if he was married. Crippled on the night that his wife fell off a cliff, Lyon took refuge in the medicine that the doctors insisted he take. When taken to Melbury Hall, he soon is brought out of his drug induced stupor by the woman he doesn't recall, but knew he married.

I would give this book six stars if I could. Millicent is one of my favorite historical heroines. With her courage and compassion, Millicent saved many lives, include Lyon's. Even after getting through five hellish years of marriage and almost dying, Millicent still has good in her heart. McGoldrick brings the reader two people who help each other come to terms with their pasts and heal their hearts, all while falling in love. The secondary characters in this book are unforgettable. The whole storyline was great, not like most historicals where the most pressing issue is what is fasionable to wear.

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In 1772 though she owes a fortune due to her nasty deceased husband's debts to Jasper Hyde, Millicent Wentworth spends more than she can afford to buy an elderly Jamaican slave. Millicent immediately frees Ohenewaa while Jasper goes wild over learning he was outbid because he obsesses over owning the aging former slave.

Needing money badly, Millicent agrees to wed Lyon Pennington, a wealthy invalid wallowing in self-pity. His family pays off her debts and he is moved to her home where many free former slaves earn a wage. As Millicent pushes Lyon around and with the aid Ohenewaa a healer, he begins to recover much of what he lost in the accident that left his first wife dead. As the English couple falls in love, Jasper becomes desperate to get hold of Ohenewaa so he can force her to "free" him from her curse. He is willing to kill anyone in his way of achieving his goal.

This engaging Georgian romance works on several layers besides the obvious romance between the lead couple. The secondary players provide depth to the high morality of the prime protagonists so that the audience feels the mental anguish and physical pain of Lyon and the need bordering on guilt for Millicent to make retribution for her odious first husband's treatment of people. Though the Jasper subplot adds little to the prime tale except suspense and action, sub-genre readers will strike gold with this deep tale.

Harriet Klausner

I haven't even finished this book and I can rate it already. Have had all of her books for quite some time but waiting for my daughter to read. I am finally reading them and I am so sorry I took this long to do it. I find it hard to believe that the last one is only rated four stars.
The thing I love so much about this book (don't get me wrong, have loved them all) is the way Millicent & Lyon "Aytoun" interact. Their verbal encounters are so very real. It makes you feel like you could be in the room with them. Even though he is an Earl of the peerage and she is highborn, Jim & Nikoo are able to make it quite everyday. I don't know if I am speaking of this correctly but this book is by far one of the """BEST""" books I have ever read. All of her books are on my KEEPER shelf. The thing of it is...I DON'T WANT IT TO END. :):):)

The McGoldrick team has released another winner. This is a wonderful story about overcoming adversity. The supporting characters were exceptional. All around a great read. This was a great beginning to a new series. I am in anticipation of the brother's stories.

In 1772 though she owes a fortune due to her nasty deceased husband's debts to Jasper Hyde, Millicent Wentworth spends more than she can afford to buy an elderly Jamaican slave. Millicent immediately frees Ohenewaa while Jasper goes wild over learning he was outbid because he obsesses over owning the aging former slave.

Needing money badly, Millicent agrees to wed Lyon Pennington, a wealthy invalid wallowing in self-pity. His family pays off her debts and he is moved to her home where many free former slaves earn a wage. As Millicent pushes Lyon around and with the aid Ohenewaa a healer, he begins to recover much of what he lost in the accident that left his first wife dead. As the English couple falls in love, Jasper becomes desperate to get hold of Ohenewaa so he can force her to "free" him from her curse. He is willing to kill anyone in his way of achieving his goal.

This engaging Georgian romance works on several layers besides the obvious romance between the lead couple. The secondary players provide depth to the high morality of the prime protagonists so that the audience feels the mental anguish and physical pain of Lyon and the need bordering on guilt for Millicent to make retribution for her odious first husband's treatment of people. Though the Jasper subplot adds little to the prime tale except suspense and action, sub-genre readers will strike gold with this deep tale.

Harriet Klausner

Total rubbish. I admit to a DNF and let me give you just a few examples from the opening chapters to explain why:

1 - The author(s) haven't any feel for the geographical setting of this book which revolves around slavery. For a start, although slaves could be brought into Britain in 1772, they could not be bought or sold; they could be brought into the country only as personal servants - indeed, admittedly there was a fashion to have young black pages but many of them were not slaves but were servants and freemen. Also, in 1772 (the year in which the book opens with a slave auction) the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, made a ruling under common law that "the condition of slavery did not exist under English law in England". Therefore, much of the premise of the book is quite inaccurate and to me, therefore, unacceptable. I could see that in Jamaica the heroine's late husband could be a nasty man but I can't believe he could have got away with holding slaves and mistreating them in England itself.

2 - Titles. A personal hobby horse but please note that a wife of "Squire Jones" is not Lady Jones; squire itself is not a "title" of any sort - it merely refers to an owner of a substantial property for farming purposes in the countryside. The hero's mother, a dowager countess, is introduced in the first chapter as "Lady Archibald Pennington, Countess of Aytoun. Her given name is Beatrice". I haven't the first clue what the authors were doing here but it is completely wrong. As I and others have noted in reviews, why get things 100% wrong when 5 minutes looking at the internet would put you right? Do authors actually prefer making a mess of this sort of thing? Why write about titled people in a country you apparently know little about and thus make a complete bodge of it? I just don't get it.

3 - Attempts at dialect/accent. Having all characters not of the gentry/aristocracy continually use "ye" in conversation is silly beyond words since the authors have both Scots and English servants do it when their accents and dialects would have huge differences.

4 - The solicitors (not lawyers in England) are "Sirs". Baronets or knights? Really? In the 18th century solicitors or barristers were generally middle class (sometimes younger sons of the lesser aristocracy) and untitled (so not baronets) and certainly not knighted for their profession. It does not take much research to establish that.

5 - Field hands. Maybe on slave plantations in America but in England those who work in the fields are called farm workers, estate workers, cowmen, ploughmen, shepherds, or labourers but not field hands. Also, trying to make an English country estate akin to a plantation in Georgia is so irritating that I could not take it any longer and so began to contemplate a DNF.

6 - The drugged hero. He has family who love him but they seemed to have no compunction in drugging him into a continual stupor. I am afraid I just did not care enough by the 5th chapter to pursue this any further.

Finally, OK - I admit I could not persist in this. The writing style is grating (perhaps because there is more than one hand in it) and the attention to period and historical detail was not at all high quality. As much as I dislike giving a bad review, I hope I've given enough detail above to show why I could not get interested enough to read this.

Although this is an historical romance, its feeling rings true with a man and a woman looking for a second chance at love. I loved the theme of Millicent taking care of and nursing Lyon back to health. That is always a moving encounter. But Millicent's makeover of Mellbury Hall was an unexpected delight, as was their visit to Baronsford (sp?) estate in Scotland, and the unlikely friendship of the Dowager and the African doctor's assistant. I truly enjoyed this novel. Few authors can bring such real emotions into a story, May McGoldrick is a good one. I also enjoy the entertaining stories of Maggie Osbourne.