Customer Reviews

Love in Disguise (Super Regency, Signet)

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2 star:		(1)
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Layton did not set out to write a trilogy (according to her own website), but this book ended up the first book in a trilogy. The other two books are #2 THE GAME OF LOVE (featuring Arden Lyons, a secondary character in this book), and #3 SURRENDER TO LOVE (featuring the [person] of this book).

Layton sets up the book a bit like THE DUKE'S WAGER, in that there is a triangle, with two men, both friends, competing for the love of a single woman. Except that this is not THE DUKE'S WAGER, where both men are titled, wealthy, and out to seduce the girl. This is actually a far more complicated story.

One of the men - Mr Warwick Jones - is a wealthy untitled gentleman, with considerable social clout but he prefers to be a recluse. He is very good with women (in bed), but believes that he is unlovable (reference is made to his unhappy childhood but it is not beaten into the read). Warwick is a tortured hero in that his feelings of inadequacy do not warp him but they leave him feeling that he is undesirable to women and ultimately not loveable. The other is a Viscount, but a Viscount who is virtually bankrupt, except for one entailed estate.

At the start of the novel, we meet an unusual coachman who turns out to be a viscount - Julian, Viscount Hazelton. Lord Hazelton is down on his luck, and earning money with the few skills he has left. At a country inn, he runs into an old friend - Warwick Jones. Warwick persuades Julian to mortgage his entailed estate and to invest that money with him.

When some thugs attacks Julian in the street,he ends up recovering at Warwick's home. It is at this point that Susannah moves in complete with chaperone (taking up a prior invitation from Warwick to her brother). This is when the relationship between the three actually develops.

Warwick seeks revenge for the cowardly attack on Julian, and his search carries him into the heart of London's underwold, presided over by a leonine giant, called naturally Lion. Who he is, remains a mystery in this book. [Find out who he is from Bk 2 - THE GAME OF LOVE]. The criminal element forms an important part of the story, tied as it is with Warwick's family history and Julian's occupation.

At the same inn where Warwick and Julian met, they run into one of Warwick's Cit partnersm (the son of a fishmonger made good) and his only sister Susannah Logan who has been well-education. She is too well-educated for Cit men, and she is too under-bred for society, except for those lords seeking to repair their fortunes through marriage, and she won't have them. Susannah is however interested in this particular lord - both for his golden looks and for the fact that he is trying honest work. This is a lord she could marry.

Julian Hazelton (Lord Hazelton), the other "hero", is however in love with a lady far above his reach. She is the Incomparable Lady Marianna Moredon [sometimes called Lady Moredon, an error like a few other errors with titles]. His lady is however under the guardianship of her brother Lord Robert Moredon [actually Lord Moredon] who hates both Julian and Warwick since their schooldays. Why? Read the book to find out.

So, we have Susannah pining for Julian who is pining for Marianna. And we have Warwick pining for Susannah, but also deeply conscious both of his friendship with Julian and that he is not attractive to women (or so he thinks). Susannah believes that her low birth makes her unacceptable not just to society but to any gentleman of rank, except Julian and he is unavailable. Warwick believes that he can only purchase the physical aspects of love and not find genuine happiness. And Julian believes that he is in love with Marianna Moredon and that she will wait for him if she can.

By the end, the love triangle has been sorted out. Obviously Susannah cannot marry both men. She gets her wish, sort of. She also gets the right man. She has done considerable growing up in the course of the book, and both her suitors have learned quite a bit about themselves and love.

Unlike THE DUKE'S WAGER, where both men set out calculatedly to ruin the heroine for a wager (making them unlikeable to many readers), in this book, both men behave honorably, more or less. Both have physical relationships with women for the night (portrayed briefly but tellingly)

My only regrets were that Warwick's family - his mother, his stepfather and his step-siblings - were mentioned only during his childhood memories. Even told second-hand , I would have liked to have seen a little more of them.

The story is told with a lot of introspection and narrative. While there is dialogue and action, the story is slower than a Regency historical might be. But things do happen, and the action ranges all over London and outside London. There is plenty of excitement, and a dazzling wealth of characters from different walks of life. But the story itself is centered firmly on the three characters we meet early in the story - the lady Susannah, and her two gentlemen.

On a re-read it was interesting to see how certain secrets were hinted at earlier through an episode here and there, or the description of one character through the eyes of another. This is a longer traditional Regency (a Signet Super Regency), albeit with frank if brief portrayal of intimacies. It is not quite a historical, in that stress is played on introspection and character growth.

Rating = 4.9
Recommended = Very Highly

P.S. If you are interested in what Warwick should look like, please check out the drawing on Layton's page ... I hated the cover (talk about a hero groping the heroine!).

This is the first in a wonderful trilogy.

Susannah is beautiful enough to make any lord proud to call her his lady, but she is not part of the aristocracy. Her brother manages to arrange a visit for her with Warwick Jones, one of her brother's business contacts. This will allow her to meet and greet the cream of the crop as Warwick is accepted in every drawing room. But she finds her love very close by, in a friend of her hosts' - the beautiful Julian.

Warwick watches them grow close with happiness at first, then pain as he realizes that he loves Susannah. Now Susannah must decide who she belongs with - and how to do so at the expense of someone else.

Edith Layton writes a fabulous story full of romance, intruige and fun. If you love a great historical romance - this is a great one to read!!

Layton takes the usual regency stereotypes (a blond god of a hero; a dark, mysterious, cynical hero; a gorgeous, fiesty blonde) and turns them into people you care about. There is a love triangle, and I usually LOATHE love triangles, but you care enough about the people involved and the circumstances are so well laid-out that it doesn't feel contrived.

It is more than a piece of fluffy writing (though, thank goodness, it is that too.)in that you do see how the main characters mature -- and realize they've grown up, or have become vulnerable.

The secondary characters (Lion, an underworld kingpin, a countess/chaperone who fades in and out of the scene, a barmaid, even the dreadful beauty that one of the hero yearns for) are great too. They are interesting but don't steal the stage from the main characters.

The repressed villian was over-the-top, but, after all, we are talking regency here. And actually he wasn't entirely unbelievable or even unsympathetic. . . (when he started raving about the golden god's beauty, for some reason I was reminded of a Monty Python routine . . . maybe the crazed, obsessed barber?)

I'm a new reader, but now I have to hunt down every book this woman has written. She is AMAZING.

Thank you, Ms. Layton, for adding class and good writing to the romance novel!

This is another Edith Layton book that is twice as long as it needs to or should be. It's close to 400 pages and like "Lady of Spirit" is painfully slow.

After reading "The Duke's Wager," which is one of my top regencies of all time, I came to Amazon to look up other positively reviewed Layton books. "The Choice" turned out to be another wonderful book. Unfortunately, "Lady of Spirit" and now this book, "Love in Disguise" were both disappointments. Both suffer from the same flaws. They are much too long and rambling, as if the author was forced to double the length. And the leading female characters fell way flat.

By the time I was at page 70 of this book, I was thinking, Get on with it already! By page 150, I doggedly forced myself to continue reading only because it was an Edith Layton book. I found myself looking at the page number quite often in the same vein that one would glance at the clock every 5 minutes when eagerly awaiting something. Unfortunately, by page 222, I'd had it and gave up. The pace did seem to start to pick up here (FINALLY!) but the characters and the story were not enjoyable to me. I did not like them or sympathize with them too much.

The story really is about Warwick Jones. Essentially a cynical, all-knowing, brooding gentleman with a slightly troubled past. I usually like characters like this but for some reason I didn't fall in love with Warwick. I guess it's because he seemed TOO perfect. He's described with a less than handsome face, true, but in every other way, he was too omniscient, too capable, too unhuman really. He falls out of character when he falls in love with the main female, Susanna, who in turn is infatuated with his best friend. But even this sudden love at first sight (literally) didn't sit very well with me. And that's because Susanna is another Layton female lead who I could never come to really like.

Susanna is repeatedly described as intelligent, educated, witty, and courageous in the beginning of the novel. Problem is, she doesn't DO anything particularly intelligent, educated, witty, or courageous until much much later. One of my pet peeves about novels is when the heroine is described as intelligent or brave yet there is really no evidence of such. Susanna's character is really flat and blah for at least the first half of the book. Aside from being absolutely beautiful, there is nothing about her that could make it believable for Warwick, portrayed as such a wise man, to fall immediately and violently in love with her. Honestly, except for her beauty, it doesn't sound like she would be very different than any other woman.

Another big thing that bothered me about this book is that the author seems to spend an unnecessary amount of time referring to sexual conquests. This is not a Harlequin so there aren't any explicitly steamy scenes, yet the author repeatedly brings back the subject of so and so's sexual conquests. We get it already. The men have experience with the ladies. No need to bash it into our heads. It doesn't add anything to the story. And that's essentially the problem with the book. So many details, so many extra pages that don't add to the story. They just draw it out and make it seem to drag on forever.