Customer Reviews

The Game of Love (Signet)

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"A Game of Love" demonstrates Ms. Layton's superb talent for characterization, motivation, and realistic romantic leads.

Francesca is about as down on her luck as it is possible to be: her father has grand dreams but no luck at the gaming table, she is stuck in France with no way to get back to England, and her continued employment (with one of the nastier families in romantic fiction) depends on her ability to turn a blind eye to their scheming and her successful impersonation of a respectable widow.

Arden Lyons (the "Lion" from the first book in the series) wants to put 32 years of history behind him and settle down as a member of the landed gentry. Unfortunately for him, he finds that in light of his very bad past he has qualms about marrying a good woman.

This romance is sweet and satisfying from beginning to end, as Francesca and Arden determine whether their initial attraction can survive the truth. Just when it seems that no barrier can keep them apart, Francesca's "dead husband" reappears, very much alive...

Filled with marvelous characters, topping them all is the larger-than-life ARDEN LYONS, illegitimate son of an earl, brilliant, commanding Colonel, and feared Underworld Czar. His traveling companion is the astoundingly gorgeous JULIAN DYLAN, Viscount Hazelton [both from Book 1, Love in Disguise]. Disguised, they've come to a gaming place outside of Paris to retrieve a deed from gamester Sir Geoffrey Carlisle, Baron Wyndam, who for once has won it in a card game. The Baron is a compulsive gambler who has lost everything. As a result, his daughter Lady FRANCESCA CARLISLE is working (!) as the widowed Mrs. Devlin (she's taken the name of a fiancé who was killed in action). In fact, Francesca is also there with the nouveau riche Deems family, chaperoning the very marriageable, vapid Miss Deems. Rounding out the female company is the very pretty Mrs. Roxanne Cobb, the Baron's gaming foil and soon Julian's mistress. Arden sets out to "court" both Francesca and Miss Deems. Francesca's immediate negative response to the physically enormous Lyon (aka Lion) becomes mixed, then positive. Arden proposes to the "widow" he's immensely attracted to, but withdraws it when he finds out she's only 21 and unmarried, mainly because he's got this past that he doesn't think he can rise above. And he also purposely ruins his possibilities with the Deemses. Enter Francesca's fiancé who is alive and hiding, having run from the battlefield. He wants to take her away, but she won't go. When Arden receives word that his birth father, the noxious earl, is dying and wants to see him, the foursome (Francesca, Roxanne, Julian and Lyon) return to England . The son who stood up to him and who he loved the most, the Earl makes him the new lord. Lyon believes that when Francesca has seen all the grossness of his life, she'll be disgusted. But not her! On the journey revisiting his sordid past, she learns more of the truly honorable character he is and how people high and low revere him. A bullet in his back - that cowardly fiancé won't quit - brings everything together.