Customer Reviews

Maddening Minx/A

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I picked up a copy of this at a UBS last winter and just finished reading it. I liked it, without doubt, though the latter parts of the book irritated me.

Basically, it is the story of Philip Thornton, Marquess of Pembroke, widowed in circumstances which appear slightly sinister. He is, we learn, the victim of some worrying but undoubtedly contrived "accidents". Enter Sarah Chadwick, a governess dismissed from her job after rebuffing the usual lecherous master (you know the thing!).

Sarah is a bit too much "in your face" sometimes to make her a wholly realistic character within the Regency timeframe of the novel. Philip, whom she meets in the course of one of the "accidents" is a highly intelligent man who has withdrawn from society because of suspicions surrounding the death of his late wife. He was injured in the fire which killed her and lost an eye which makes him believe that no reasonable woman could love him (heard this one before?). However, irritatingly, he believes that despite what appears to be a serendipitous marriage, Sarah is cheating on him with his cousin Richard.

Richard, of course, is after the title and money, Sarah is not cheating and Philip suffers from wounded price as well as his partial blindness. Indeed, the eyepatch he must wear is a metaphor for his irritatingly silly acceptance of Richard's attempts to undermine his marriage, this leading him "blindly" to believe Sarah to be false and even pregnant by Richard. This is, sadly, a somewhat trite device so often used in romantic fiction.

All this having been said, I did enjoy the story, the premise was a little different than usual and so were the H/H. The author writes well, her command of language and evidence of careful research is pretty well done and she makes few of the often silly mistakes which pervade some Regency romances. Well done - worth reading but probably not a keeper.