Customer Reviews

Counterfeit Lady

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1815 Lady Clara orders her reluctant paid companion Alice to pretend to be her at a masquerade ball. Clara wants confirmation that the man she is to meet Nigel Farnham is as ugly as rumors state; but cannot ignore the toady since her aunt Lady Pembroke insists she must pay attention to him.

Nigel dances with the lady he assumes is Clara and finds himself spellbound. However, before everyone unmasks, his dance partner flees. When Clara vanishes, Alice is forced to keep up her masquerade to avoid a scandal. Nigel pursues Alice as Clara while another aristocrat also goes after her. However when Clara returns as if nothing has happened she decides she wants Nigel and if destroying Alice's reputation will achieve her objective so be it as a companion is expendable.

Counterfeit Lady is a delightful Regency romantic romp starring a wonderful lead couple and several purposely stereotypical self centered support characters like Clara and Alice's cold Minister dad. The story line is fast-paced from the opening dialogue with a coaxing Clara unaware of her companion's inner debate in which Alice the imp argues with Alice the minister's daughter whether she should or she should not masquerade. Dawn MacTavish provides an amusing historical as readers will relish the imp winning the argument.

Harriet Klausner

I liked this book until 1/2 way through and then I found myself skimming the pages. The concept was interesting Lady Clara is off to meet her lovers and talks her paid companion Alice to pretend to be her at a masquerade ball and meets an handsome Earl When Lady Clara does not return from that night Alice pretend to be Lady Clara in order to find her. When it all fall apart Alice's her evil father locks her away and the Earl sets off to find her...

At the end of the book it was noted she writes under other name as well Dawn Thompson which sound little more my style but while I was searching...I found that author had passes away in 2008. Here is a list of her book that I am off to find .... The Ravencliff Bride, The Waterlord, Lord of the Deep, The Marsh Hawk (Leisure Historical Romance) and Prisoner of the Flames (Leisure Historical Romance).

I liked the idea of the book but the execution and editing left something to be desired. It felt like the author used her Thesaurus a little too much and got stuck using the same words over and over and over. Gel, fie, bounderer are just some of the words that stood out.

This is the first book I've read of this author's work and I probably won't read another one.

This story has so much to build up interest - the sheltered young woman experiencing London for the first time in her life -- the conflict between her and her overbearing and remote father -- the challenges that she experiences as a companion to the self-centered and wayward Lady Clare -- the pronounced differences between the ton and their lower classes -- the handsome young soldier in culture shock returning to "civilization" and its societal demands -- even the color of London itself in 1815.

All of these elements were included in the book, but each seemed to be superficial and lacking flavor.

This was a quick read, but it is not one that I would read again or recommend.

I downloaded this book from Amazon when it was available at no cost. It is well formatted, broken into clearly defined chapters.

This was a disappointment for me. After reading MacTavish's three previous historical romances (The Marsh Hawk, The Privateer, Prisoner of the Flames), I was expecting this one to have more substance to it. It's just a sketchy little romance with mistaken identity, vicar's daughter heroine and peer hero, a spoiled and amoral young woman of the peerage that the heroine works for, and, to top it off, a vicar who is so cruel, mean-spirited and downright horrible that you would think he was the heroine's evil stepfather rather than her biological father. So I did not like it much because of the high expectations I had for it. I have learned (from Deborah MacGillivray's dedication in ONE SNOWY KNIGHT) that Dawn Thompson (aka, Dawn MacTavish) has recently died. Perhaps during the writing of this book she was not feeling well and could not do her best work.