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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great Regency romantic mystery, October 31, 2009
This review is from: To Love a Wicked Lord (Mass Market Paperback)
In 1803 seven months ago, Phillipa "Pippa" Carstairs' betrothed Noel vanished immediately after their engagement party. Pippa's grandfather hires Lord Maxwell Sutton to find the missing fiancé as his grandchild is caught in a no lady's land by the Ton since Noel is not reported dead and they had not married as widowhood or desertion is acceptable while nothing else is.
When Pippa first meets Maxwell, she believes he is a dandy whose cravat will be in the way of a meaningful investigation. However, Pippa quickly revises her opinion of a shallow bored aristocrat as she finds him to be intelligent and witty. As she falls in love with Maxwell, she hopes he never finds her intended though she believes he will. As for Maxwell, he has also fallen in love, but to have any future with his Pippa, he believes he must find her fiancé.
This is a great Regency romantic mystery starring two likable strong protagonists who come together over the search for her lost fiancé. Few sub-genre writers have been as consistently strong as Edith Layton who passed away in May. TO LOVE A WICKED LORD pays homage to this terrific author who in spite of her fight with cancer for several years kept her readers enthralled with super historicals like this one.
Harriet Klausner
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Was this unfinished when the author died?, November 29, 2009
Edith Layton has for many years been an automatic "keeper" on my bookshelf, and I've never been sorry to read a book she wrote. This, the last book she wrote before she died, is not a keeper. I think that the issue here is that the book was unpolished when she died.
Fundamentally, this seems more like a first draft than a finished novel. The issues are really about the technical aspects of the writing, problems I have never seen in a Layton book before. These technical issues interrupt the suspension of disbelief necessary to keep a reader moving through a novel.
I don't want to trash the novel or its author too much, so I will give only one example. In no other novel by Layton have I ever encountered PoV issues. In this novel, there are places where the PoV switches mid-sentence. That's the kind of thing one revises as one edits one's work.
There are other issues like this, the sort of thing that appear in early drafts of novels, but which are cleaned up by good authors (and Layton was certainly a good author) well before the book hits the stands. In this book, there are technical issues with the writing, some places where the plot nearly runs off its wheels (usually with possible solutions quite obvious to the reader), and some inconsistencies of voice.
I've read far worse books, and this one is certainly worth reading, as it's very much better than a lot of the dreck being published. What it isn't, is up to Edith Layton's usual standards, and that makes it a disappointment.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Diversion, December 23, 2009
This review is from: To Love a Wicked Lord (Mass Market Paperback)
I saved this (possibly final) Edith Layton book for a special occasion. I think having the whole house down with the flu a few days before the holidays counts, so I read it in one sitting this evening. I found it a wonderful example of what made Edith Layton one of the best writers Romance has to offer. If I were to sum up what makes a Layton novel a Layton I'd say a beautiful use of language, an eye to the details of the times, a quirk of convention, and strong characterizations. In a Layton novel it's not the big moments or the sweeping discovery of a multinational plot that advance the book along, it's the quiet and real discoveries of a life. It's Pippa looking down at her grandmother's head and realizing her halo of curls is a teased disguise for the cruel advances of age.
I'll agree that Maxwell isn't the dominant force in this book. This is a heroine driven novel, the focus is on Pippa. Pippa may be romance novel beautiful, but she's not romance novel arrogant. She's a woman like many others, trying to find her way through a recent betrayal and a new attraction. She's rejected openly by more than one man, in more than one way, but gets out of bed the next morning the same as any of us have to do. Pippa has to care for an aging relative and accept the loss of her extended childhood. This is Pippa's book, and she's a wonderful character to spend some time with. The gift of an Edith Layton novel is that the eccentric grandmother isn't a point for farce (even when she's entertaining). Pippa's concern for her grandmother's potential mental state is the reader's concern. You care just as much for her well being as you do for Pippa and Maxwell.
In Edith Layton's best work, her characters make difficult and realistic choice while operating under the obligations of their times. Families fall apart or reunite. Lovers are fated or doomed. Every one of her characters could strike up a conversation with you in the grocery line, operating under modern convention, and have the same core story to tell. Her books are about relatable human concerns. To Love A Wicked Lord touches on her finest moments without quite reaching all of them, but when you're aiming that high close is more than enough.
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