Customer Reviews

The Conquest

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Her teenage younger brothers always bring home wounded animals and ultimately Alexandria Gascoyne ends up caring for the creatures. However this time it is different as they obtain her help using their door and his horse to carry the wounded unconscious man into their home. With no identification on him, the only thing Alexandria and the doctor she sent for know is that he is very wealthy. When he regains consciousness under her nursing, he introduces himself as the Earl of Drummond, Derek Drum de Macy.

When Drum heals, he reluctantly returns to London, leaving behind a now lonely Alexandria who misses their enlightened discussions. He craves to see her too so he sends for her though he knows his rank makes her unsuitable. As they fall in love, Drum has an unknown enemy who tried to kill him on that country road near his beloveds home and will take other shots at it including at his most precious Ally.

Fans of Edith Laytons C Regency books will want to read THE CONQUEST, a powerful tale that brings back characters from the previous novels in the series. Though better to understand the support cast by reading the earlier novels, this story line tells the tale of the intrepid lead characters so that the new readers have a stand-alone book. The theme centers on love between social classes though some intrigue lingers throughout the plot. Regency aficionados, especially those, who give an A+ to Ms Laytons C books, will cherish the latest entry.

Harriet Klausner

Each time I read an Edith Layton book I make new friends, and this was no exception. As an added benefit, I got to spend time with old friends from her other books in the series. Drum and Ally's story is the latest in Edith's "C" series, and just as wonderful as the others. Drum is powerfully attracted to Ally, but his deep love for his "high in the instep" father, the Duke of Winterton, places what seems like an insurmountable wall between them. It's not very often than I can sympathize with a character who is afraid to love another because of "rank", but Drum's love for his father made this all very believable and sympathetic. And it is wonderful to read a story where the characters are not the epitome of perfection, either physically or in their characters. I appreciate Edith's knack for making her characters human, while still giving me great escapist reading ;o) You will fall in love along with Ally and Drum, experience their confusion and their temptations and their sufferings, and cheer when they grow and mature in their outlooks. AND (surprisingly enough) you will learn to love the arrogant Duke who is their "obstacle". This book has definitely made it to my "keeper shelf", and I will be anxiously awaiting the next one. Edith Layton just keeps getting better...

Edith Layton does not disappoint in her latest "C" series romantic adventure, which is a Regency love story between two people of different social classes. The Earl of Drummond, heir to a Dukedom, meets Alexandria, a foundling of unknown origin, under less than auspicious circumstances. They strongly resist their attraction to each other: Drum, because his obligation to his family name has been ingrained in him since birth, and hence he must marry someone suitable of noble rank; Ally, because she knows that she could never be considered an socially-acceptable wife under strict class barriers that exist in Regency England. Along the way to the resolution of this and a few other problems, we get to revisit colorful characters from Layton's previous "C" novels, and there is the occasional villain thrown in for good measure. What makes Layton's books enjoyable is her skill in developing the characters slowly and her meticulous attention to detail in place and plot. I would highly recommend any of her books, and if you are a long-time Layton fan, as I am, you will be very satisfied with this book.

Oh, sighhhhhh. I'm still in a hazy daze after reading THE CONQUEST. What a rich, emotionally satisfying story! Alexandria is a poor country girl of unknown parentage who knows her place in the great scheme of things, and that scheme does not include the right to stand as an equal next to the Earl of Drummond. Drum is a gentleman who must remember that despite his attraction to Alexandria, she is not of his class and therefore ineligible as a potential lifemate. Layton paints vivid, three-dimensional characters in the person of Alexandria, Drum, and Drum's austere father. I ached for Alexandria as she fought her growing love for a man far above her station. I sympathized with Drum as he denied the urgings of his own heart and heeded his father's insistence that he consider marriage to one of his class.
This dark spectre of class distinction hovers between Drum and Alexandria as she nurses him back to health after a near fatal accident. It takes a terrifying interlude that threatens both their lives before the barriers between them begin to crumble. I finished the book in one sitting. I am tempted to go back and read it all over again.

Like so many of Layton's books, The Conquest requires a reader with a brain, an attention span, and an openness to explore outside genre limitations. The social distance between hero and heroine in this time period is something completely alien to the modern experience. Drum considering a serious relationship with Alex is something akin to your son coming home and telling you he's in love with a same sex partner from a different race who also happens to be in prison. Not Done is an understatement.
Layton's gift lies in allowing the characters to expose their world through their own eyes - she does not rely on the lazy convention of excessive explanation to show the reader where the book will go. The reader takes the journey at the same time as the inhabitants. Falling into Drum and Alex's world, modern reality falls to the wayside. The medical limitation, class limitation, all may seem absurd by our standards but in Drum and Alex's time this was reality. No other writer has the power to make this lost world seem as natural as Edith Layton and The Conquest is an excellent example of her skill as a storyteller. Fans of Mary Balogh owe it to themselves to explore the works of Edith Layton, and The Conquest is an excellent place to start. Too many historical novels are simply Hollywood movies set in a glittering backdrop. Too few of our authors create worlds true to history and humanity. In the instant that Drum realizes the true depth of the chasm between himself and the woman he has been desperately searching for the reader is so captivated by her that the loss is mutual. It doesn't seem impossible, it IS impossible. Drum and Alex are not only extremely realistic characters, they are persons of character and as such it is a pleasure to spend time with them. Please read this book and remind yourself why Regencies enthralled you in the first place.

A self-confessed admirer of Edith Layton, I wish to say only how very much I enjoyed this, the last of the 5 volume "C" series. I found it more introspective than the previous four stories with much of the book's action taking place in verbal and internal conversation. Indeed, the well done episode of the kidnapping and imprisonment of the hero, the Earl of Drummond, and the heroine, Alexandria Gascoyne, comes as somewhat of a surprise as it takes place in a novel which is largely of much internal anguish. It does, however, act as a catalyst for the hero and heroine manage to come to terms with their situations in life and, despite reluctant acknowledgement of the difficulties of turning on its head the social mores of the times, they find the courage to do so.

There is a lot about love in this novel: the earl's love for his father which is indisputably returned; the love Alexandria has for her adoptive brothers; the love a woman who made a bad match had for her husband; the love of friends for each other. There is also a well drawn background here pointing to the social strictures of the times which too often in regency fiction are ignored allowing characters to behave like modern folk in costume.

Drum, in finally getting his story told, seems to me to be the most credible, most rounded and most desirable of the "C" heros. He must, in this well crafted novel, address certain aspects of his own character and upbringing and, in largely credible way allow himself to love and be loved by a woman from an entirely different social class. How this happens is believeable and well told. This man is brilliant, kind, honest, caring and a good friend but it is, in the end, through the experience of helplessness following a serious injury, that he comes to see that love is the apsect of his life that is missing. How satisfying to see him find it with his spiritual if not social equal.

Excellent stuff and a wonderful culmination to the "C" series.

This is a perfectly competent Regency historical from Layton, one of my favorite Regency authors. It is not however her best work or even her best Regency. I will explain why.

The storyline has been summarized well by others. Those not familiar with the characters in her "C" series (five books) or who have read only one or two a long while ago (like me) will probably not be quite as charmed with the reappearance of certain characters all at once. [Let me say first that Layton is known for subtle references to her minor characters such as the Swansons in early Regencies, and that Lord Wycoff at least appears in a story A LOVE FOR ALL SEASONS in an eponymous anthology as early as 1992].

I have not read many of her historicals. And of those I have read, many have been her non-Regency historicals or her Signet Super Regencies. I am therefore judging this book solely on its own merits. There is enough backstory to understand that the Earl of Drummond, or "Drum" has several friends who are very closely-knit. This book spends a lot of time on these friends who are the secondary characters (they have or will have their own books). While this is an attraction for lovers of the entire series, also detracts somewhat from the emphasis on the romance in *this* book, per se.

The story itself was not a bad one - although it uses an old plot premise, what makes it different is the way that the plot develops and the secrets in the heroine's past.

A gentleman is seriously injured and must live in the very small home of a young lady who is the mainstay of her small family. The lady in question is the orphaned daughter of a schoolmaster (and we soon realize that she has her secrets). Why are Alexandria and her siblings so isolated? What exactly did their father do to lose a comfortable job at Eton? Is their father, the late schoolmaster, indeed their biological father? Where is Alexandria's mother? By the end of the book, these problems are solved.

Drum is a man who has been told by his father, a duke, to marry suitably. He is pondering this issue and realizing that he has never been in love when he is ambushed. His problem continues even when he realizes that he is attracted to Alexandria.

A schoolmaster's daughter is unthinkable for a duke's heir (by the way, some duke's heirs are only earls or lesser, such as the heirs to the dukes of Norfolk and Somerset, two of the oldest English dukedoms). It is even worse that Alexandria's father was a radical, a misanthrope, and a thoroughly unlikeable person with no connections to the aristocracy. It is not that no aristocrats have married beneath them in the past, but that Drum's ideas of marriages are tied to his father's ideas - and his father believes firmly in marriage within the aristocracy. Anyone who does less is a fool and makes himself ridiculous in the eyes of society. In this, Drum is actually reasonably consistent with the mindset of a typical Regency aristocrat, although this does not make him the ideal hero for a modern reader.

While Drum is recovering first at Alexandria's cottage and then in London, his father and friends are trying to discover who shot Drum and why. In the process, the father discovers an old friend who married well beneath herself. No spoilers here, but I would have liked to have seen more of their interactions because the father's actions and words at the end came as a distinct surprise and one which seemed out-of-place.

I liked this book, but I did not love it. Drum, although he had an interesting and historically correct point-of-view, was hard to sympathize with - partly because of his rigid views about marriage inherited from his father.

The focus was also mostly on the other characters, partly because of Drum's immobility, partly because not much happens from time to time. As interesting as this was, it detracted from the time that the author could show the interactions between Drum and Alexandria. And there was a long separation between hero and heroine as well.

I found the resolution of the romance a bit unsatisfying. Obviously, Drum and Alexandria are meant for each other, birth and all. But the father's changed opinion seemed rather abrupt, to put it mildly.

The intrigue element on the other hand is well-done, and not the theme not one that has been used too often. How the hero and heroine escape was very well done indeed and definitely a different touch from the usual "climb out of the window" scenario.

This is a well-written by someone who knows her period, but it was more for lovers of the entire series. It also has some problems as a romance. I suspect that THE CONQUEST will appeal more to readers who don't necessarily want the romance upfront and the couple involved with each other from the outset, and above all, readers who don't mind a slow read with lots of secondary characters who take up considerable space. Not being a conventional reader, I don't mind such a book, but other readers might have problems (please note my ratings breakdown below). By the conventions of the romance genre, THE CONQUEST is a flawed romance.

Rated = 3.8 (B)
Breakdown = romance element graded at 2.7 (C-; 25%), writing at 4.5 (A-; 25%), characterization (of protagonists and secondary characters) at 3.8 (B; 25%), plot development at 4.5 (A-; 25%).

Recommended = with mild reservations

Oh, sighhhhhh. I'm still in a hazy daze after reading THE CONQUEST. What a rich, emotionally satisfying story!

Alexandria is a poor country girl of unknown parentage who nurses a stranger back to health after his near-fatal accident. Drum is a gentleman who must remember that despite his attraction to the lovely nurse, she is not of his class and therefore ineligible for anything more than a light flirtation. The dark spectre of class distinction hovers between them, an intangible but very real barrier.

Yet after Drum is well enough to return to London to look for a wife, he cannot forget Alexandria. He encounters her again in Town, and finds it impossible to stay away from her. Still, there is always the barrier between them. That barrier finally crumbles away when they are thrown into a situation where they both face certain death.

Layton paints vivid, three-dimensional characters in the persons of Alexandria, Drum, and Drum's austere father. I ached for Alexandria as she fought her growing love for a man far above her station. I despaired when Drum felt he had to deny the urgings of his own heart to heed his father's insistence that he consider marriage to one of his class.

I finished the book in one sitting and already I am tempted to go back and read it all over again. In this day and age when there seems to be an alarming number of poorly written books out there, it is always a pleasure to kick back with a Layton.

Derek, the Earl of Drummond, known as Drum, nearly dies from an assassin's bullet. Three young boys discover him lying beneath his horse. With the help of the horse and the local doctor, he is brought to the house of Alexandria Gascoyne, sister to the boys. She nurses him alone until Drum, in a rare moment of consciousness, points out the impropriety involved. He has been a target of marriage-minded misses long enough that he would see that tendency in anyone. Another woman comes to live as chaperon in this already cramped household, but as Drum recovers, he realizes that he has offended this good woman with his arrogance. He tries to make her life easier by bringing his servants and building onto her barn, but he has an accidental tendency to shame and embarrass her, especially when town buffoons follow his friends to her house and accost her. He fights his feelings for her, for he is very aware of his consequence and must present his father with a noble daughter-in-law. For Alexandria's part, she has fallen in love with Drum but knows that a relationship cannot be. Her bloodlines are entirely common. But when she gets an opportunity to visit London, she can't pass it up.... Edith Layton continues her string of fascinating characters who are lovable in spite of their flaws. She also creates a sense of time and place that is nearly unmatched.

Edith Layton has a way with words that will make the most romantic heart swoon. Her couples come alive and dance the courtship dance with all the elegance of a waltz, whirling faster and faster as the music plays on. Beautifully done!