Scandal [Paperback]

Amanda Quick (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 28, 1991

From a stately country house in Hampshire to the dazzling drawing rooms of London Society, comes an exquisite tale of an elfin beauty, a vengeful lord, and a sweet love that is sheer poetry.

With her reputation forever tarnished by a youthful indiscretion, lovely Emily Faringdon is resigned to a life of spinsterhood, until she embarks on an unusual correspondence and finds herself falling head over heals in love. Sensitive, intelligent, and high-minded, her noble pen-pal seems to embody everything Emily has ever dreamed of in a man. But the mysterious Earl of Blade is not at all what he seems.

Driven by dark, smoldering passions and a tragic secret buried deep within his soul, Blade has all of London cowering at his feet, but not Emily... never Emily. For even as she surrenders to his seductive charms, she knows the real reason for his amorous wit. And she knows that she must reach the heart of his golden-eyed dragon before the avenging demons of their entwined pasts destroy the only love she has ever known...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Under the Quick ( Surrender ) pseudonym, veteran romance novelist Jayne Ann Krentz (see review of Silver Linings below) offers a tale of Regency England that, while deftly handled with touches of humor, is more notable for its darker side: the hero and heroine rescue each other from past injuries while challenging each other for control within their relationship. Emily Faringdon, a 24-year-old spinster, adores a man she has never met: Simon Traherne, her favorite correspondent on her favorite subject, romantic poetry. When Simon attends a meeting of Emily's local literary society, he indeed seems to be "the man of her dreams," a handsome earl apparently willing to overlook the scandal in her past--a thwarted elopement. But Simon is interested in her mostly as an instrument for revenge: he blames Emily's father for his own father's ruin and suicide 23 years before. Since then, Simon has plotted to destroy the Faringdons. A romantic with a strong pragmatic streak, Emily persuades Simon that marrying her enhances his possibilities for gaining revenge and she then begins her own campaign to win his affection and free him from the past that has poisoned his life.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

From a stately country house in Hampshire to the dazzling drawing rooms of London Society, comes an exquisite tale of an elfin beauty, a vengeful lord, and a sweet love that is sheer poetry.

With her reputation forever tarnished by a youthful indiscretion, lovely Emily Faringdon is resigned to a life of spinsterhood, until she embarks on an unusual correspondence and finds herself falling head over heals in love. Sensitive, intelligent, and high-minded, her noble pen-pal seems to embody everything Emily has ever dreamed of in a man. But the mysterious Earl of Blade is not at all what he seems.

Driven by dark, smoldering passions and a tragic secret buried deep within his soul, Blade has all of London cowering at his feet, but not Emily... never Emily. For even as she surrenders to his seductive charms, she knows the real reason for his amorous wit. And she knows that she must reach the heart of his golden-eyed dragon before the avenging demons of their entwined pasts destroy the only love she has ever known...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reissue edition (February 28, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553289322
• ISBN-13: 978-0553289329
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #487,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With a string of bestselling Regency and Victorian Era romantic-suspense novels under her quill, AMANDA QUICK (who also writes under the pen names JAYNE ANN KRENTZ and JAYNE CASTLE) entered the world of a highly secretive paranormal group, the ARCANE SOCIETY, with her novel SECOND SIGHT. The series moved into a contemporary setting when JAYNE ANN KRENTZ (Amanda's contemporary alter-ego) released the second book in the series, WHITE LIES.

This winter, the ARCANE SOCIETY continues with THE LOOKING GLASS TRILOGY. It begins with IN TOO DEEP by Jayne Ann Krentz this December. Amanda is working on QUICKSILVER, her Spring 2011 contribution is book 2 in the series. The trilogy will conclude when JAYNE CASTLE releases CANYONS OF NIGHT, the futuristic novel, in Summer 2011.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#12 in Books > Romance > Historical

#15 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Historical Romance

#39 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

#86 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#87 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#12 in Books > Romance > Historical

#15 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Historical Romance

#39 in Books > Romance > Fantasy & Futuristic

#86 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#87 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars What happened here? January 1, 2000

By Geri

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am usually the first to rave about a book by Amanda Quick (Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz) but I'm afraid I have to pan this one.

While the dialogue was, for the most part, as witty and charming as usual, there were many fatal flaws which completely ruined the experience of this books.

Blade was a character I just wanted to strangle. He was cold and calculating and did everything he could to crush Emily's sweet adoration of him. It was rather reminiscent of the early scenes between Demetrius and Helena in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The usually undercurrent of the hero needing the heroine's love to fill a void wasn't developed enough and when Blade finally comes to accept and love Emily due to her "sacrifice," it seems a little too abrupt. Yes, I see how AQ was working him up to that point but it still didn't come off right.

Emily became rather annoying at times. She was so blinded by her infatuation that I wanted to shake her (which is rather silly considering she's a fictional character). Yes, the few pages where she actually shows a shrewdness is refreshing but there simply isn't enough in there to make me like her.

I'm used to characters I can grow to love and *respect* and for the first time in my history of reading Amanda Quick, I was disappointed. I do not recommend buying this book but it can still make for an interesting time-killer if you can get it from your local library.

Overall, badly done.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars One of Quick's earlier books... August 20, 2001

By bookjunkiereviews

Format:Paperback

SCANDAL was probably one of the first Amanda Quick books I read (before all her heroines started intermingling into one "Amanda Quick heroine" in my mind). Recently I picked up another copy of this same book and decided to re-read it. It was a good thing coming back to an early Quick after having given up on reading her for many years.

The plot is essentially the same: A young lady of good birth with a scandal in her past and with a somewhat unrestrained tongue (at least in the use of swear-words) meets up with a mysterious stranger. Except that she has been corresponding with this man for some time under his name, and not his title. Except that the man is out for revenge against her father and indeed her entire family. One of Quick's trademarks (for me at least) is that she quickly identifies what drives the hero - usually a past family or personal disgrace, coupled sometimes with financial ruin. If you don't like guessing at the hero's motives, this Quick habit is great. On the other hand, it makes some plot devices fairly obvious.

In this book, the mysterious stranger is an Earl whose father was ruined by Emily's father. We never quite learn what Simon (the Earl) had planned for Emily, but his plans rapidly change. He realizes that Emily is a financial and business genius, and that she is keeping her family afloat. He will marry Emily, and in so doing, revenge himself by ruining her family financially. After all, after they are married, Simon can forbid Emily to help her father and brothers. Or can he?

There are some other Quick trademarks - loyal servants, a genuinely evil villain, a relative who is absolutely indifferent to the heroine's plight. At least, I have come to think of them as Quick trademarks. That does not mean that the story is not interesting. It is - if only because Emily deliberately or inadvertently furthers Simon's plans for revenge and then neatly foils them. Her reasoning is that revenge is pointless, that innocent people will be hurt, and the greatest villains of the piece were their fathers. But she cannot have her own father hurt, and Simon's father is dead.

Is this a boring book? I did not find it boring. The book, like all of Quick's book, requires a certain suspension of disbelief, in that Quick creates an alternate Regency world in which women are permitted to engage in business (and have their business skills appreciated by men, if only for the sake of profit), in which a young lady can say "Bloody hell", in which an impoverished young earl can accumulate both power and wealth rapidly (without the sources of his wealth being completely clear). In some ways, Amanda Quick's heroes and heroines are thoroughly modern people transplanted to the Regency era, in other ways they are not. For example, Emily is still ruined when she elopes with a young poet; Quick does not go that far in ignoring Regency conventions.

The reason that some people love Quick's books is because her heroines are independent women with modern ideas, and with a fierce drive to prove themselves equal intellectually to the hero and other men. They are frequently learned, always intelligent (if sometimes naive) and always ready to be seduced by the hero. The hero is always a gentleman, almost always rich from the outset and frequently mysterious, but always skilled at the sensual pleasures. On the other hand, some of Quick's most faithful readers have deserted her, precisely because her books all began to sound alike.

I find her earlier books and middle period books to be the most readable.

Personally I prefer SCANDAL to some of her other books published in the early to mid 1990s. There is less intrigue in this book than her typical work, and less drama. The heroine is once in danger, but she is never kidnapped. And there are only three villains in this book, although the villainy of two of the men consists mostly of egoism and extreme selfishness. If you like a quieter read, try this one. It has only a few sensual scenes, but it is a read with its own charm.

I rated this book at about a 3.4, which is slightly less than the grade assigned to DESIRE, one of her two medievals.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge is sweet . . . October 6, 2004

By Amanda Carrell VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Revenge is sweet, especially when it leads to love, as it does for Emily Faringdon and Simon Traherne, Earl of Blade, in _Scandal_ a phenomenal book by acclaimed Regency author Amanda Quick. _Scandal_ is a new and exhilarating twist for Ms. Quick. As opposed to the usual mystery that drives the plots of her books, we are presented with a matter of revenge.

Forced long ago to flee his home, Simon Traherne harbors a dark and brooding hatred for the man who won that home in a frivolous card game -- Broderick Faringdon. In order to extract vengeance, Simon vows to wed the daughter of the man who ruined his life and destroyed his family. Starting a correspondence with Broderick's daughter Emily, Simon spins a web of romance and love that leaves the whimsical and fanciful Emily powerless to resist his charms. Married for all the wrong reasons, Simon soon finds out that he got more than he bargained for in Emily. Her fierce love and devotion breaks the hard ice that covers his heart and shortly he finds himself in love with a member of the family he vowed would pay for his pain.

Without fail, Amanda Quick always wields a tale so full of romance and adventure that it keeps the reader enthralled from the start and _Scandal_ is certainly not an exception. The characters are lively, witty and endearing. Simon is a dark, forbidding dragon and Emily is a charming, brilliant, and highly intelligent elf and together they heal each other and grow strength from their love. There is a great chemistry between Simon and Emily that fairly crackles from the pages. They are so completely different while being so much alike. Both were forced to grow up way too quickly and thus are the perfect match for one another. Emily's unfailing faith in Simon will touch your heart as she strives to prove that love is worth more than revenge. I also really loved the symbolism of the dragons and the way Emily incorporates them into her wardrobe to display her absolute devotion to Simon for all to see.

Though possibly not the book you should start with if you are a first-time Quick reader, _Scandal_ will invariably please the long-time fan as Ms. Quick's wit, style and talent reinforce the reason we love her books so much.