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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very light, very fluffy, very large print!,
By J. Lesley "(Judy)" (Midsouth, United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Lord Deverill's Secret (Paperback)
Amanda Grange is the author of Mr. Darcy's Diary (also published as Darcy's Diary) which I thoroughly enjoyed and Mr. Knightley's Diary which I found to be slightly slow and tedious. When I discovered that she had also written this Regency romance I was anxious to see how I would enjoy a book written by her not involving characters from the works of Jane Austen.
Cassandra Paxton has gone to Brighton after being in mourning for a year with two goals in mind. She wants to get her home there in pristine condition so that she can sell it, and she wants to find out what her brother meant in a letter he wrote shortly before he died in a riding accident. In the letter Rupert states that he has done something "terrible" but gives no clue as to what it is. Cassandra decides to question Rupert's friends to see if any nasty surprises remain for her to find and clean up. The first friend she calls on is an impoverished earl, Justin, Lord Deverill. Cassandra is reassured by Lord Deverill that Rupert was probably just referring to a gambling debt and there is no need for her to worry. Since Rupert's other friends all say the same thing, Cassandra knows she should just accept their advice and enjoy the time she has left in Brighton before she goes back to the country for good. Unfortunately, she seems to be having quite a few accidents, any of which might have proven fatal if fate had not intervened. I was quite disappointed in this book. It does not have nearly enough depth to the characters nor to the plot. I found myself thinking quite often that any sixth or seventh grade girl would find this easy reading. There was a mystery. But it wasn't very interesting. There was a romance. But it was hard to tell it was a romance because there wasn't much feeling shown between our hero and heroine. There was an old family legend, a bit of espionage, and a revolting man who offered to set Cassandra up as a mistress for gentlemen. All of this should have held my interest. None of it did. It was rather bland and very flat. The author included a description of an evening spent at the Brighton Pavillion with the Prince of Wales as host. The descriptions were not terribly well done and the "entertainment" entered into by the Prince after dinner was a curiosity but only raised questions from me concerning firing pistols indoors. I'm sorry to say that I do not recommend this book for Regency romance readers UNLESS.....you want very large print, a light fluffy read and a surprise ending which anyone in their right minds will see coming from a mile away. The choice, as always, is yours.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A light and easy read,
By
This review is from: Lord Deverill's Secret (Hardcover)
No surprises here! If you've read any other books by Amanda Grange then you know what to expect - an easy read for a lazy Sunday afternoon or for light holiday entertainment.
As many of her other books, this is set in the Regency period and most of the action takes place in Bath. We meet our gentle heroine, Cassandra, who is in Bath to tidy up her house there in order to sell it - she's running low on money following the death of her brother. She meets Lord Deverill who has a secret (the book's title is a bit of a giveaway) and Cassandra meets him in order to try to find out what her brother was up to at the time of his death. It seems she has opened a can of worms; no sooner is she asking questions of her brother's friends when near-accidents start to befall her. Of course, Lord Deverill is usually around to help her out of her scrapes - like all good heroes. Eventually they band together to catch the person behind all these problems and mixed with some espionage and the possibility Cassandra will go off Lord Deverill (he was, unfortunately, partly responsible for her brother's death - a circumstance she seems to get over remarkably quickly) they eventually find their man. There are some interesting little vignettes into Regency life - bathing machines is one example - but this is no scholarly work in the tradition of Georgette Heyer. It's a fun and gentle story with a very nice hero and heroine and even the baddies seem a little, well, amusing.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A light, entertaining read...,
This review is from: Lord Deverill's Secret (Mass Market Paperback)
The year is 1805. Miss Cassandra Paxton has one thing on her mind: to uncover the mystery surrounding her late brother Rupert's letter. He died in a horse-riding accident, or was it really an accident? In the letter, he says he has done "something terrible," but what? So Cassandra travels to Brighton to clean up her townhouse and sell it, for she has run out of money. She is also determined to meet all of Rupert's former friends to ask questions. His friends are all wastrels, like her brother once was, and she is none the wiser about his death. Lord Deverill, a handsome but impoverished earl, has made sure that all of Rupert's friends keep their mouths shut about something. His secret could endanger Cassandra's life, and he had promised Rupert to keep her safe. Too late. Someone is trying to kill her. Who could it be?
I hadn't read Amanda Grange before I picked up this book. According to her website, she has written several novels based on characters in Jane Austen's classics. I am not surprised that Grange likes Jane Austen, for this book has a very Austen-like approach. The language, the assemblies, the gentle and subtle romance -- not to mention the scene that is almost identical to the one in Pride and Prejudice where Elizabeth Bennet runs into Mr. Darcy in Pemberley -- Grange has an Austen and Georgette Heyer type of sensitivity that made this book readable to me. It is also very well researched. She drew me to the Regency era without throwing me back with some glaring anachronism (except for the part about owning the house. I thought women in those days couldn't own property). The romantic tension between Cassandra and Lord Deverill is lovely in its subtlety. If you're looking for strong sexual tension and sex scenes, then you'd better look elsewhere because you won't find them here. Grange had classics in mind when she wrote this. The suspense aspect was entertaining and gripping at first, but the execution disappointed me. I liked the whole espionage and treason angle better, but then again that storyline has been done to death in Regencies. All in all, I enjoyed Lord Deverill's Secret. This is a very light, very easy read -- no complexities or much depth in the storyline and characters -- perfect for a seven-hour flight. In fact, I should have saved this for my flight to the UK tomorrow. No worries, for I am bringing a full arsenal of reading material. :-) In the meantime, I recommend this book.
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