Customer Reviews

Delacey's Angel (A Zebra Regency Romance)

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Jacket Blurb: "A LORD'S PRAYER: Ever since he'd returned from Waterloo, Col. Richard DeLacey, Earl of Rochdale, could think of nothing save the angelic beauty who's appeared on the battlefield to tend his wounds. Her saucily up-tilted nose, serious blue-gray eyes, and soldier's courage were imprinted on his heart and soul forever. All he wanted now was to find his mysterious savior and make her his wife. ---A LADY'S ANSWER: Elizabeth Discoll, who's faced the guns of war with scarcely a tremble, quaked at the thought of the imminent London Season. A country doctor's daughter, she knew she was impossibly declasse at a rout hosted by society's greatest catch: Lord DeLacey. Until he embraced her in his library and announced that they must be wed! She thought him mad...and his kisses sinfully delightful. But the ton was in the worst snit of all, determined to stop a match that was shocking, scandalous-- and heavensent..."

This book is worth reading just to have a piece of the 4-book story. However, after reading THE LADY AND THE SPY which I really enjoyed and which motivated me to buy the rest of the 4, I was disappointed in this one. The storyline was very promising but Ellis took three of the key supporting characters over the top so much so that they started to really irritate and bore me rather than interest or amuse me. The Elizabeth character's father is also a baronet in addition to being a doctor. So what's the problem with the match being unacceptable to so many?

It seemed like Ellis' characters started getting out of her control and leaving her original storyline and character outlines to do their own things. A rewrite of the earlier part of the book might have avoided this feeling of inconsistency that I kept getting here and there. I just grew impatient to finish this book.

The romance and the two lovers are charming and entertaining. If only the author hadn't felt the need to bulk the story out with wicked plots and aged madwomen, and surround the poor heroine with over-the-top enemies. The obstacles to the romance were poorly-motivated and not believable for the time. What possible opposition could there be to the titled hero marrying the daughter of a baronet? Why would the ton of London (let's not forget that they weren't just the jet-set equivalent, they were the rulers and government and opinion-makers) tremble before the dictates of a reclusive old woman, who wasn't a patroness of Almack's or a brilliant hostess or even particularly sane?

Ellis writes well and engagingly. Her characters are lively. She's even apparently done research. But her invented Regency London is closer to the Castle of Otranto or Anne Radcliffe's Italy than anything Jane Austen would have recognised as England.

The entire series of books by Monique Ellis on DeLacey and the characters introduced here are wonderful. They keep you on the edge of your seat with mystery, twists of fate, and surprises popping up. I wish she would write more books on the people introduced through these books.