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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tinged with Betrayal, Bitterness...and Hope,
By
This review is from: Three Little Secrets (Mass Market Paperback)
Reading through reviews of "Three Little Secrets", I was almost convinced I wouldn't like the book. Accusations that Carlyle recreated the same storyline as in the previous title, "Two Little Lies", the same emotional turmoil, well, it almost made me dislike the book before I'd even read it. Who does want to read the same story when they're expecting to get something new? Yes, the third in Carlyle's latest series does bring to mind some of the same emotions and heartaches that the couple went through in "Two Little Lies", but I firmly believe that the author did a splendid job of creating fresh characters with totally different circumstances.
In the foolish frenzy and emotional rush that is youth, Merrick MacLachlan and Lady Madeline elope under the influence of their first love. A hasty marriage in Gretna Green though, is not enough to keep the hands of fate from ripping them apart most cruely. In this case, they have Maddie's father to thank for that. The meddlesome lord, who has political aspirations on the brain, is furious that his daughter, his one chance at a grand political alliance, has lowered herself to marry a businessman. Thinking that Merrick accepted payment to leave her from her father and signed papers for an annulment, she tearfully returns home and weds a man of her father's choosing. Thirteen years later, with a troubled son in tow, she comes back to London to find help for him. When fate brings her together once more with Merrick, old bitterness and hurts cannot help but come to the surface. And Merrick is bitter beyond imagining. Neither want the other, neither wants to feel anything for the other, but both are helpless to deny that under all the anger and grief, there may still be something worth fighting for. Merrick and Maddie's story is very different from the previous book's. Sure, the intense emotions will bring to mind Viviana's intense temper (heroine in "Two Little Lies"), but Maddie's situation couldn't be more different. She and Merrick had the kind of strong and intense love, that once denied, twisted over time to the kind of gut wrenching agony that can only ignite when they once meet again. Of course, they must still care for one another if they are bothered by eachother still. I do agree with some reviewers' assessments about Merrick: he was very cold, very cruel and I did not like the way he treated Maddie or the names he called her at times. I cannot blame him though for his other intimate relationships he had aside from her. After all, she does marry another man and lives with him for many years. My only other complaint is that I do wish their resolution could have been reached before the very end of the book. Other than that, this is just the kind of historical I enjoy, but only occasionally. The intense and sometimes disturbing emotions that are rampant throughout this book are not for the faint of heart and not for me with every book. But I do enjoy a good tear jerker from time to time and I enjoyed the in-your-face emotional storm that Carlyle has taken readers through with her latest series. Maddie's son, Geoffrey, was very interesting as well and his own personal dilemma is not one readers usually see in these mainstream historical romances. If you like characters that are well-rounded and emotionally engaging give this one a try. Don't forget about the previous two, "One Little Sin" and "Two Little Lies". A great series and one for my keeper shelf.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Third of the Trilogy - Tormented Hero,
By
This review is from: Three Little Secrets (Mass Market Paperback)
I've read all three of the Sins, Lies and Secrets Trilogy. Since I read them all out of order, I can tell you they are still good stand-alone but much better to read in order since they over-lap. Also the characters are recurring and it is nice to revisit them all later! The third book also mentions "the gypsy's curse," but it is not the overwhelming premise. This book was a shade darker emotionally than the others.
Merrick MacLachlan is the most tormented of the three men in the trilogy. He has loved and lost ... his wife, his looks, practically his humanity! He lives only to work and also there is the warped thought of revenge. His wife, Lady Madeleine has also lost what she once had. The most weak-willed of the three heroines in these stories, she has good reason to be. She was very young when she and Merrick eloped and beatings from her father after the marriage was annulled have done serious damage to her spirit. But these many years later, after marriage to an older gentleman and travel around the world, she has come back as a widow to settle in London with her young son. Her son is "different" and she seeks to find out what is wrong with him. She is not the same woman as when she was young and meetings with Merrick lead to fights - but later to a realization that they both had been lied to! Can the years of self-loathing be overcome? What of her son's illness? I felt this couple had the most to overcome for there to be a successful reconciliation. It was accomplished in a very interesting way. I liked when they moved to Scotland and granny. This was a wonderful finale to the series ... you mean there are no more???? Well worth reading.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Like a couple on the eve of a divorce, not a marriage,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Three Little Secrets (Mass Market Paperback)
I'd heard bad things about Three Little Secrets and I thought...no, certainly not, Liz Carlyle is too good to write a really bad book. I was wrong. Three Little Secrets is awful.
The worst thing about the book, what struck me as being unforgivably sloppy, is how ham-handed the plot is. Madeleine's son Geoff has "fits" and "strange notions" - but neither she nor anybody around her nas noticed that he manages to tell the future through his fits, averting peril to life and limb numerous times. It is staggeringly obvious whatis happening, but nobody has put two and two together. Since Geoff saves Merrick's life twice during the book with his visions, I was pretty stunned that it took him 300 pages to figure out what was going on. Or, alternatively, Madeleine believes that her marriage to Merrick was annuled. Now, apparently at the time of her marraige she didn't know what an annulment was; fine, I'll buy that. What I had a hard time believing is that at the age of 30 she still doesn't know what an annulment is - or what the conditions of getting one are. She's perfectly stunned when Merrick tells her they're still married, and that a couple who have married and consummated their marriage would have an almost impossible time getting an annulment. So she tells Merrick that he's lying, leaves, vows to find out the truth herself...yet days and maybe even weeks go by and she hasn't found any way to figure out what annulment is or how to get one. This means that during subsequent meetings she can continue to insist that Merrick is lying, and their marriage was annuled. There are plenty more examples. The plotting is just sloppy, and unbelievable enough to make it hard to get into the novel. I was also really unsatisfied with the romance. Madeleine comes across as a meek coward, very timid and unhappy after a life of being bullied by one person after another. She occasionally has flashes of backbone - when she mostly seems brittle and cold. And Merrick very quickly steps into the role of a bully - yelling at her, controlling her, taunting her. Madeleine does her fair share of taunting in return, but she is so fragile and weak, while Merrick is so confident and strong, that all of these exchanges were depressingly lopsided. Merrick and Madeleine do nothing but fight. They have those really painful, no-holds-barred fights that leave deep internal wounds. They seemed to me like a couple on the verge of a divorce, not a reconciliation - and I didn't want them to get together. If it meant anything like a continuation of what was happening in the novel, it would be a truly miserable marraige. I liked Merrick well enough; he's a hard, ruthless, brilliant man who only thinks about making money and is very good at it. He comes across as self-controlled, emotionally deadened, but the demons of his past and their lingering effect on his present are believable. But I did not like Merrick with Madeleine. I couldn't see how Merrick's disciplined and dominating personality could do anything but oppress Madeleine's much weaker one. I didn't understand what Merrick saw in Madeleine, other than her looks - he occasionally says that he loves her for being a strong and capable woman, but he's delusional if that's his reasoning. All in all, the worst Liz Carlyle yet.
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