Customer Reviews

Lady of Spirit (Signet Regency Romance)

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Victoria Dawkins, daughter of an apothecary and a governess, has fallen on hard times due to the thoughtlessness of an aristocrat; she lost her position and, without a reference, cannot get another one. So now she lives in a slum, hoping against hope that she will find a new position. Charmingly, she is 'adopted' by Alfie, the eleven-year-old oldest child of the family next door, who hires her to teach himself and his siblings how to speak 'proper', in return for food and her rent.

In the meantime, Colin Haverford, the new Earl of Clune, hears a confession from his young cousin Theo, Lord Malverne: an action of crass stupidity on his part lost a poor old governess her job. It was some weeks after the event that Theo bothered to tell Clune anything about it, but they at once go to find the governess; Colin is amazed and dumbstruck to find that Victoria is anything but old, and that she is beautiful. Still, Theo promises to call on her to recompense her in some way, so Colon thinks no more of it. Until he discovers a couple of weeks later that Theo did nothing at all. Struck with an attack of conscience - Clune is a far more noble man than the book's cover description implies - he goes to see Victoria, to try to undo the wrong done to her by his family.

But he is overcome with feelings of attraction to her, and since - because of the way Theo explained what had happened to him - Colin believes that Victoria is not as innocent as she appears, he offers her a carte blanche. She rejects it outright, but wonders afterwards if she did the right thing. Learning from his mistake, but still feeling responsible for her, Colin then tries to arrange a respectable position for Victoria. But her poor living conditions and lack of sufficient food means that when she comes to see him to discuss his offer, she collapses and has to be confined to bed in his house.

Which means that Colin then finds himself also responsible for the most charming and amusing family I've encountered in romantic fiction: no-one could help loving Alfie, or admiring the way he takes care of his younger siblings.

However, Victoria is still just a governess, an apothecary's daughter, and as such the only relationship possible between Colin and Victoria is that of master and mistress. And Colin's already made the mistake of offering her that once, and he respects her too much to disgrace her. So, as he tells her, she cannot live under his roof.

As usual with Layton's heroes, Colin is a decent, fair man at heart; despite the jackets of her books portraying her heroes as wicked seducers, almost none of them ever do seriously attempt her heroine's seduction - and never against their will. She does a very good job of portraying Colin's fight with his libido and his struggle to remember his manners and position around Victoria. And likewise, Victoria constantly struggles with her conscience and her attraction to Colin.

And as ever, there is an entertaining cast of secondary characters, including Alfie and his siblings. Highly recommended, if you can get your hands on it!

One thing which puzzled me: just why Colin is called 'Cole' by his family, when the first syllable of 'Colin' is obviously 'Col'.

Unusual is the first word that springs to mind to describe this Layton novel. She is one of my favourite Regency writers but this one was quite striking for its level of introspection, internal action and fey-ish quality. The language employed by the author is almost quaint; her sentence structure is seems formally old-fashioned which adds to the charm of this story.

The plot has been summed admirably elsewhere so I want only to say that if you like novels that allow you to get inside the head of your hero, here is a splendid example. Our heroine does not become as intimately known to us but we do learn a lot about our hero by how he reacts to her. Cheers for his family and background - here is an earl who once worked with his hands. Cheers, too, for the family of slum-bred children he adopts, takes to his heart and thereby, inadvertently, breaks a centuries-old family curse.

Oh for more examples of such witty, well-wrought prose in the Regency setting!!

I usually get my Regency novels in random discounted lots. I read so many that I rarely remember titles. In one of those lots, I discovered a gem of a novel by Edith Layton called The Duke's Wager. 90% of the Regencies I read I recycle/resell, but I have a small shelf of "keepers" and The Duke's Wager is a keeper that I have reread several times with continued delight.

So I came on here to Amazon to see what other Layton books readers enjoyed and saw the positive reviews for Lady of Spirit. I actually went out and paid specifically for this book, something I almost never do, being the cheapskate I am. After reading the first couple of chapters, I realized I had actually read this book before--and recycled it. If you're looking for something up to par with The Duke's Wager, Lady of Spirit falls way way short.

Lady of Spirit is 270 pages long. That's pretty long for a Signet Regency Romance. In my opinion, it's about 100 pages too long. It's as if the author wrote a novel and her publisher told her to double the length so she went back and added all this unnecessary filler. The first 30 pages is mostly a very drawn out description of the "heroine's" background. I think less than 5 pages would have been adequate. But most of that book follows the same vein. In fact, there is very little interaction between the hero and heroine for the first half. I kept thinking, when is the story going to move along?

"The elegant conveyance was not a common sight in such a district, and so perhaps only because two sizable stalwart footmen clung to the rear step, and an uncommonly aggressive-looking young tiger shared the high seat with the driver, the coach attracted no more than envy from those that beheld its passage."

Nothing wrong with the sentence above. Except that it feels like every 3rd sentence runs on like that, particularly in the first half of the book. It's incredibly distracting and difficult to read, especially when the story moves at such a slow pace.

I might have been less bothered by the length of the sentences and overall book if I found the "heroine" likable. The novel is titled "Lady of Spirit" and I assume this refers to Victoria, the female lead character (there is a lady ghost involved but she is such a tiny character I can't imagine the title would be referring to her). But Victoria is far from spirited--in fact, at one point the hero calls her "passionless and prim" and I wholeheartedly concur. She may have a beautiful face and a kind heart heart but I found her totally without spirit. In fact, sometimes I wanted to throttle her.

Victoria is essentially alone in the world and has just been fired without references from a governess position. The book opens up with her living in abject poverty, starving and with no source of income in sight. In one scene, she stares at a meat pie that had dropped onto the ground and there are pages about her inner struggle about whether to "pilfer" it. In the end, she doesn't and so continues to go hungry. Later that day, a kindly pie vendor sees her longingly eye one of her pasties and offers it to Victoria for free. But does she graciously accept? No, she can't accept "charity" and so walks home, once again preferring starvation and pride over practicality and just a bit humility.

She goes on in this vein throughout the book and I quickly lost patience with her. Ok, so I can understand how she might reject the offer to become the mistress to a wealthy, handsome, and kind lord when he offers--though really, I question whether the more courageous thing to do might be to accept such an offer as a means of survival rather than living on your high horses while starving yourself to a grave. But in principal, I can see how we the readers are supposed to think Victoria's such a great moral woman for declining such an offer.

But later in the book, she finds herself in the position of a servant who is demeaned and taunted unceasingly, which she herself describes as almost "unbearable". Yet she would prefer to stay in such a miserable position indefinitely rather than face a single meeting with the hero because it might prove "embarrassing." Give me a break!

Victoria, her brother, and her mother have had to split up to each make their own way through their poor lives. Victoria sent part of her earnings (back when she was employed) to her mother. I understand that a person might not want to be a burden on others, but even on the verge of death through starvation, Victoria refuses to let her family know of her true situation. Asking for help is not a flaw. Accepting help is not a flaw. The fact that Victoria stupidly refuses to do either when it means the difference between life or death IS a glaring flaw. And it turns out her brother selfishly abandons both Victoria and her mother when he gets married. But maybe if he knew how serious things were for Victoria, he would've helped.

There are other instances in the book as well that portray Victoria as an overly proud woman. That kind of pride reeks of arrogance even. Aside from that, Victoria is portrayed as a beautiful woman, with a kind heart of course, but really, other than attaching herself to a parcel of orphans, she does nothing throughout the entire book that is remotely spirited or endearing. For all its 270 pages, I actually found the "heroine's" character to be majorly underdeveloped. Far from rooting for her, I wanted to wash my hands of her.

The lead male, Colin, is much more likable. He's portrayed as a man with a sense of humor, a truly good heart, and solid character. Other than a beautiful face, you wonder what the heck he sees in Victoria.

My favorite characters in the book were actually the orphaned children. The author did a great job with Alfie and the children's story, which was genuinely touching. Too bad I can't say the same about the main story. I would have to say pass on this one.

Great story which moved me to tears more than once. A ghost story and a romance all in one. Well done, Ms. Layton!