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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Gold Beverley,
By
This review is from: St. Raven (Mass Market Paperback)
As a great Jo Beverley fan I always look forward to her new releases and having had a glimpse of the mysterious and handsome Tristan Tregallows, Duke of St. Raven in "Hazard" I was totally intrigued and couldn't wait for his story. The book description sums up the story with Cressida Mandeville agreeing to the swarmy Lord Crofton's vile proposal with her naively thinking she is going to put one over on him and retrieve her father's hidden wealth. Rescue, in the guise of a `highwayman' messes up her plans, as she and Crofton are held up by a `highwayman' who recognizes and knows Crofton for the slime-monster he is, so thinking of doing a good deed he rescues Cressida from his clutches. Instead of grateful Cressida is furious! Tristan, our knight-errant `highwayman' is a complex character, not withstanding his very wild tendencies, he treated Cressida like a lady, once he realized she was an innocent, and her very naivety would make even him blush. Cressida is, for all her attempts at proving to be a lady, curious enough and naïve enough to have thought she could have gotten away with her plan. Realizing how tenuous her reputation is should word of this escapade be known she convinces herself to grasp whatever `pleasurable' experience Tristan so succinctly offers her. Tristan develops extremely well and the orgy he brings Cressida to was, to me, a highlight of this story and not to be missed. The extremely sensual loveplay is tastefully and skillfully woven under the expert pen of Ms. Beverley. If any part of this romance were to bother me, it would be the reality of the historical era that they lived in and the division of classes. All through the story, you see Cressida, wanting so much to be able to spend her life with Tris, and his thoughts as well on the dilemma, with both rationalizing that they could never cross over the barrier that separated the high-born from the masses, especially when their very association would have led many to speculate as to how they met which could have very well ruined her. Bottom line, this is Beverley at her best, a keeper and a must read!
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable but not flawless,
By
This review is from: St. Raven (Mass Market Paperback)
The story of Tris and Cressida was pleasant enough entertainment and another example of Jo Beverley's skill with the quill. Still, it didn't satisfy me to the same extent as some of her other novels have managed. (Warning, some spoilers).
Cressida is a bit too conventional and prudish. The strong and early attraction of Tris to Cressida is somewhat doubtful, considering his worldliness and her pretty ordinary behavior and looks. The difference in status between the protagonists is annoyingly ubiquitous. The fact that he is `the Duke' and with that just two levels below god is made clear on virtually every page - often by Tris himself. The plot is a bit too shallow and makes scandal, rumors and reputation the crux of the whole story. There are also loose ends; for instance, who is Caradoc Lyne - his role is never explained - and what happens to the Minnows? What made me cringe however, was the fact that Tris could so easily prove that Cressida had not been the houri at Crofton's orgy by providing an imposter at his party at Nun's Chase. A discriminating (malicious) mind (and there were quite a few around) might have wondered if the second houri was identical with the first - since the disguise made a switch so easy and in fact likely, given Tris' known desire to protect her identity. Secondly, Tris risked Cressida's social death sentence if anyone had recognized the second houri as Miranda - who attended the first party (quite visibly so) and could therefore not have been the houri at Crofton's. Some of the other characters were not really credible either: Would an adventuress like Cressida's mother really stay in England and away from her husband for over 20 years because as a child Cressida couldn't deal with India's climate? Would she have been content with the tedious life in Matlock, be a picture of propriety the whole time only to fall in love with her husband again, who by the way manages to lose their whole wealth at the card table within months of his return? Would Miranda, such a vulgar though highly-paid and seasoned prostitute in her first scene, who admits to `liking variety', become so virtuous and noble in a matter of days that she settles for married life with an artist, not minds the loss of a fortune in jewels and instead helps the recipient of said jewels clear her name by posing for her? Would a thief - even a gentleman like `Le Corbeau' - forget the bred-in grudge against St. Raven in just one conversation with his nemesis. When did he have the opportunity to get to know Tris better than anyone else, in fact well enough to play the psychologist and matchmaker between Cressida and Tris in the end? Still, with all that said, the story progressed nicely enough and the characters were sufficiently likable and colorful to make this book an enjoyable past time.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Up to Jo Beverley's Usual High Standards,
By A Customer
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: St. Raven (Mass Market Paperback)
Jo Beverley is one of the pre-eminent writers of romantic fiction. I have read everything she has written, purchased many of her backlisted, out-of-print books on the used book market, and looked forward with impatience to her newest novel, St.Raven. When the bar is set that high by an author, any book that falls short is bound to disappoint, and St. Raven was a disappointing read for me. First of all, the plot was far-fetched. It revolved around Cressida Mandeville's search for family jewels (no pun intended) secreted inside one of ten...statutes that Cressida's father had brought back from India. Her quest for the jewels takes her to a [wild party] thrown at her family's former home, which was recently gambled away ... by her father to the dissolute Lord Crofton. Lord Crofton had a plan to escort the [young] Cressida to the [party] to perform intimate acts in public. Cressida had agreed to become Crofton's mistress and was accompaning him willingly in his coach to her former home. Her plan was to try to outwit Crofton by taking a [medicine] that would make her vomit in the hopes that he would send her to bed alone and she could search the house unimpeded for the jewels later that night. The Duke of St. Raven thwarts both of these plans by kidnapping Cressida during a hold-up of Crofton's coach, while posing as the infamous highwayman, Le Corbeau, who also happens to be the Duke's long-lost, illegitimate, French half brother. Having rescued Cressida from the [party], the Duke then takes there anyway, costuming her in the revealing "disguise" of a harem slave that he just happens to have on hand..... I might have been willing to suspend my disbelief if the main characters had been great, but I found them to be inconsistently drawn.... At the same time, he unselfishly (and inexplicably) puts his own life on hold for weeks to assist a stranger to find her family's treasure. He possesses all of the usual Dukely accoutrements of a fine wardrobe, multiple estates, and a stable of horses, yet he refuses to sell any of those horses to pay the bills and bemoans the fact that he is unable to help out Cressida's bankrupt family financially, thereby leaving her with no choice but to track down a... statute through the English countryside in the Duke's unchaperoned company. Cressida is also an inconsistent character, at one point reveling voyeuristically in the sights at the [party]...and at other times displaying a self-confessed "middle-class" frigidness to the Duke when he gets a little over-amorous. What bugged me the most about this book, however, was poor editing. The lack of care in the editing process is evident in the pacing of the story: The [party] scenes drag on for five chapters and even mere carriage rides take two chapters to complete. The Duke refers on at least four occasions to the "stink and din" of the [party], which was descriptive the first time I read it and boring the next three times. Were there no other adjectives that could have been used? Finally, I was irked to read (on page 139) the Duke telling Cressida that he fled abroad "in a fit of funk." ... What kind of 19th century expression is that? I think you get the point. This is not a terrible book by any means. There are enough moments of witty dialogue and character chemistry interspersed here and there to keep you from throwing the book into a corner in disgust, but they were just not enough to carry the day for me. If you are a die-hard Jo Beverley fan, you will probably read this book anyway, just as I did, but prepare yourself for a bit of a disappointing experience.
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