Customer Reviews

Lord Deverill's Secret

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

While Amanda Grange's "Lord Deverill's Secret" proved to be an easy, pleasant and light read, that, unfortunately, was all it really had to offer. The storyline a very familiar and oft used one, where the intelligent and beautiful heroine (Cassandra Paxton) decides to visit Brighton hoping to run into her dead reprobate brother's friends in order to discover if she needs to put to rights any of her brother's most recent misdeeds. Unexpectedly, one of her brother's friends turns out to be Lord Deverill, one of Brighton's most eligible of bachelors, who manages to reassure her that she has nothing to worry about. What Cassandra doesn't realise is that Lord Deverill is actually hiding the truth about her brother's death from her, and that the truth about her brother's death could prove dangerous to her own well being...

The trouble with "Lord Deverill's Secret" was that for a novel with an intrigue subplot, there really was very little suspense and practically no tension at all. For example, there is an attempt made on Cassandra's life early on in the novel, but Cassandra doesn't really think too much about it until much later in the book. And by that time one really had lost interest in what was going on. We're also not really given very much incentive to get emotionally involved with any of the characters in this novel. Cassandra and Lord Deverill were pleasant enough characters but they ween't properly developed, and ended up being just nicely bland. Cassandra, for example, never wonders how her feckless, foolish, pleasure-loving irresponsible brother could supposedly have for a close friend someone as responsible and as socially powerful as the much older Lord Deverill. I suppose what really disappointed me most about "Lord Devreill's Secret" was Cassandra's lack of curiosity. It wasn't that I wanted her to run about like a harebrained nitwit, but some curiosity would have been nice.

Ultimately, "Lord Deverill's Secret" proved to be a pleasant but bland read; all right if you're looking for a quick, easy read, but not recommended if you're looking for something memorable.

Her brother Rupert died in an accident last year, but Miss Cassandra Paxton could not go through his personal things until recently. She found a letter in which Rupert lamented feeling haunted by leaving a young woman seduced without any support. Not sure what it means, Cassandra visits Rupert's friend Lord Deverill who says to forget it as there is no young woman. She still plans to follow up just in case someone needs her help even as she places the family summer house in Brighton for sale; as the family is broke.

Cassandra follows up on her inquiries with other friends of Rupert while Deverill has her followed for her safety as much as not wanting the truth revealed. However, someone is more sensitive than Deverill with concealing what happened to Rupert and much more; that individual arranges for deadly accidents to occur to Cassandra with Deverill saving her life. As they fall in love, she begins to uncover the truth about her wastrel brother even as she and Deverill seek to uncover the identity of the culprit trying to silence her

This is an exciting Regency romantic suspense thriller in which the obstinate courageous heroine refuses to halt her inquiries into the truth about her late sibling. Deverill admires her, but also fears for her life more so than a possible future together that he knows is doubtful especially if she learns what he and other "conspirators" hide from her. Although she forgives him too easily, fans will want to know just what LORD DEVERILL'S SECRET is.

Harriet Klausner

After her brother's untimely death, Miss Cassandra Paxton had come to Brighton to accomplish two things - put her Brighton townhouse up for sale and uncover the meaning of an unfinished letter she'd found amongst her late brothers belongings. The only name she knew of a man that might be able to help her was an earl, Lord Justin Deverill who was well thought around the seaside resort as one of the most eligible, if not wealthy bachelors.

The thing Cassie did not know was that Lord Deverill held a closely guarded secret regarding her brother's death. This was most inconvenient for Cassie as Justin's mere touch sent her heart rate racing, and twice as bad for Justin who had fallen in love with her portrait before he'd ever met her. If Cassie learned his secret, Justin knew the easy relationship they'd fallen into would be destroyed forever.

*** I admit to loving the Traditional Regency Historical period and as a first time reader of this author, this was like stepping back in time with the mood, the cant, and the author's descriptive and beautiful lyrical prose.

Cassandra was well a fleshed out strong character with clear motivations. No nonsense, she had no illusions that her lack of a dowry meant there was less chance of marriage especially as the new head of household with her ten year old sister Lizzie to care for. Even if asked, and she had been asked, she would only marry for love. Selling the townhouse in Brighton would enable her to make ends meet, give her a means to restore her estate and give Lizzie a decent season. However, Cassie first had to discover if the unfinished letter she'd found in her brother's belongings meant he had left an unforeseen new debt on her doorstep. Whetting the readers imagination was the question ..."What `terrible' thing had he done?", and what a fine `hook' to draw the reader in.

Justin knew what the terrible secret was, but for Cassie's own protection, he had to keep her from discovering the truth. When several `accidents' happened around Cassie it eliminated a coincidence aspect and Justin knew she was in danger. The reader gets pretty caught up in poor Lord Deverill's miserable predicament; here was the woman of his dreams and even though he had a title, he couldn't ask her to marry him as he had no money to back it up. Plus, and this was the big one, Cassandra would despise him should his secret be revealed.

Filled with an abundance of possible villains the author kept the culprit's identity right up to the finale, and with the epilogue you'll fine an even bigger surprise in the end. Don't spoil the fun by reading the end first as the book is fast paced and totally entertaining. Readers will enjoy this story which is crafted with engaging characters and a sweet romance just perfect to while away a blustery storm filled day.

Marilyn Rondeau, www.ck2skwipsandkritiques.com

Lord Deverill has a secret, and it won't take Amanda Grange's readers too long to find out what's going on. Even though there are not a lot of surprises here, and Cassandra is quite quick to forgive, it's all in splendid fun and just what Regency lovers expect. There's an accidental death that leaves our heroine's folks impoverished, mysterious close-call accidents and daring rescues by Lord Deverill... What more could I ask for when I just have to have a literary vacation from the real problems of life!

The author's characters are easy to love and the setting of Brighton is a nice change of pace!

Recommended!

I loved this book, It is well written and held my attention all the way through. Loved the twist at the end.

Will buy more of her books.