When We Touch (Zebra Historical Romance) (Paperback)

by Shannon Drake (Author)
Key Phrases: leather apron, doss money, Shannon Drake, Lord Charles, East End (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A deft mix of history, romance and suspense, this meaty offering from Drake (aka Heather Graham) explores Victorian London's seedy East End, where pickpockets run rampant, "mesmerists" fleece grieving widows and Jack the Ripper prowls for prostitutes. Lady Maggie Graham swore she would never wed again after her husband was killed just two years into their marriage, but when her brother Justin gambles away the family fortune, she finds herself in a predicament. Should she marry the elderly Viscount Langdon, who's infatuated with her, or let Justin find some doddering old woman with deep pockets, even though such a marriage would mean the family title would pass over to their loathsome Uncle Angus? Maggie chooses Langdon once she learns that he will support her efforts to aid the impoverished. All would seem settled were it not for Langdon's dashing nephew James, who's both attracted to and suspicious of Maggie, and Charles's temperamental daughter Arianna, who ends up setting Maggie in a murderer's path. Maggie can be melodramatic and surprisingly self-centered at times, but charismatic supporting characters like her friend Mireau keep her grounded. Although Drake (The Lion in Glory, etc.) only skims the surface of her protagonists' psyches, she manipulates readers masterfully with exciting plot developments and heady love scenes.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The widowed Lady Maggie Graham agrees to marry Viscount Charles Langdon, an older widower. His nephew, Jamie, thinks Maggie is a gold digger with dangerous and potentially scandalous pursuits on the side, especially her tendency to go in disguise to London's East End to uncover charlatan mediums and mesmerists. Even he is smitten, though, by Maggie's beauty and personality, and the attraction is mutual. Charles' daughter, Adrianna, however, loathes her stepmother, a loathing that turns to outright hatred when Charles dies of heart failure on his wedding night attempting to consummate their union. When Adrianna learns about Maggie's work in the East End, she seeks a mesmerist to lure her there to her death, only to become a virtual prisoner herself to his greed and scams. Set at the time of Jack the Ripper's rampage, Drake's extremely complicated tale often reads more like a Victorian mystery than a romance, although it is the growing love (and great, if reluctant sex) between Jamie and Maggie that keeps the reader hooked. Mary K. Chelton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Zebra (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821775472
• ISBN-13: 978-0821775479
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,550 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Victorian Romance!!!, January 22, 2004

By	Kristi Ahlers (Illinois) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This was a great Victorian romance that had many different twists and turns and took the time to build the relationship between Jamie and Maggie.

Maggie has found herself set up for marriage to a very nice but still just the same, old man. She must make this match since her twin brother has mad a hash of the family finances, and Maggie feels that it's better for herself to make a match for convenience sake then her brother doing the same and never marrying for love as she once had. See Maggie is a widow she married far beneath her station when she married her love Nathan a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. She wants her brother to experience love as she did. She also feels that she will never find love like that again so she is the perfect choice to make the sacrifice. What she was not counting on were the feelings that Lord Jamie makes her feel. Her soon to be husbands great nephew makes Maggie feel a whole lot of emotions and one of those emotions is attraction!

Jamie wants to dislike Maggie it would make things so much easier if he did. Problem is he finds that despite her forays into Whitechapel and the work she does with the poor, he still finds her attractive and this is something that does not sit well with him at all. His problems don't stop there, he has been asked to not only watch out for Maggie by his uncle, but Queen Victoria has asked him to look into the horrible murders that have been plaguing the East End. At first he thinks he has two assignments imagine his horror when he finds out that the two are actually intertwined and the Maggie may be the next victim.

Despite that fact that Maggie is actually married to Jamie's uncle and in fact does not last long since the Groom does pass away the relationship between Jamie and Maggie is carefully constructed and very romantic. The mystery of Jack the Ripper was well done and added to the story. The Victorian time period is one of my favorite periods and Ms. Drake as managed in this book to pull me in and not let go until the final page of the story.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets the job done, February 11, 2004

By	Y. Collins "yodi1" (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When We Touch is a well-written story. I'm all for female characters with minds of their own, and Maggie's got one. I was surprised to read about how Maggie went to the worst part of town to lecture the people on the use of condoms! Plus it's exciting to read about a super-hot man trying to expose the beautiful woman as a gold-digger while fighting his own attraction to her (and losing the fight!). Most of all, this story exalts love after loss, bringing hope to those of us who think we'll only have it once in our lives. Do this for yourself.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful police procedural Victorian romance, December 31, 2003

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In the enlightened late nineteenth century, widow Maggie Graham learns from her Uncle Angus that she and her twin brother Justin are broke due to her sibling's gambling and that his debt could lead to Newgate if not paid off soon. Angus says that wealthy elderly Viscount Charles Langdon mentioned his interest in Maggie's welfare. He would make an ideal husband that would eradicate the Graham debt though her first reaction to her kind fiancé is that he looks more like a corpse than a living person.

However, Langdon's nephew Jamie is appalled with the nuptials between his beloved great uncle and a gold digger who scandalized all by once marrying a commoner. Though attracted to his "aunt", he wonders if she is a deadly black widow as rumored when Langdon dies. As Jamie and Maggie become acquainted over what is best for Langdon's recalcitrant daughter, they also become embroiled in the Ripper case and end up falling into an unwanted love.

WHEN WE TOUCH is an exciting Victorian romance that fans will appreciate due to its deep look at the late nineteenth century (especially female options) and a strong cast anchored by the lead couple. The story line is fast-paced with no one quite like they first appear. The Ripper subplot adds danger and a sense of the era so that the audience receives a powerful historical police procedural inside a charming romance between two combatants.

Harriet Klausner