Customer Reviews

Lord Wyland Takes a Wife (Zebra Regency Romance)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Susan Smith has described the plot of this sweet charming Regency very well. I would like to make some additional observations:

1. Paul Wycliff is probably one of the kindest young heros ever to appear in a Regency love story. Despite his earlier relationship as the much younger lover of Lady de Lacey (he was actually seduced by her when he arrived in London, fresh out of Oxford, in grief due to his father's death), he is not a rake or a rogue. His bad reputation is undeserved. It is a reputation alleged by his miserly judgemental uncle, the previous Earl of Wyland, and passed on to the governess of the Earl's son, Mary Grant. Paul is throughout the book of a kindly, romantic temperment (a vast improvement over the previous Earl), humble and totally unaware that he is extremely good-looking.

2. Ms. Reed has included lots of passages where the internal thoughts of both the hero and the heroine (Mary Grant) are explained fully and therefore the attraction between them is obvious by the time Paul proposes marriage. So are the misunderstandings that make the road to wedded bliss rocky.

3. There are some of the most charming love scenes in this book I have ever read in any Regency love story. The evening that Paul proposes to Mary; the day before their wedding when Mary and Paul walk on the beach and Paul kisses Mary on each step on the stairway up from beach had me smiling wistfully (why doesn't my husband ever think of doing something that charmingly romantic?...); and finally the end of the final chapter is one of the most delightfully romantic I have ever read and also funny (similar to the beach scene only more so). I have read those scenes over and over again, savoring them.

Last, but not least, the sweetness of this Regency love story matches, in some ways, that of Georgette Heyer's Regencies (the Grand Dame of the modern Regency love story). Its wit is gentler and not perhaps as tart as Ms. Heyers usual wit but will make you smile. Heyer's "The Civil Contract" is an appropriate comparison in sweetness and wit.

This is my second book by Joy Reed. I was very impressed with The Duke and Miss Denny and liked very much the author's measured pace and well sketched characters. I think this book was very good although perhaps a notch below Miss Denny. Still, I think it merits five stars.

Paul Wycliff, the new Earl of Wyland, has come into the title through a rather indirect way, having not been in the direct line of succession. A fairly serious-minded and intelligent young man, like many younger sons and distant relations, he was intended for the church. However, before taking orders, he takes a mistress although the liaison goes very much against the grain for him and he instinctively recoils from his situation; thus after some years, he ends the relationship. We enter the story as he receives entreaties from Mary Grant, resident at his main estate, requesting his presence to bring about improvements to his inheritance.

Believing "M Grant" to be a man, he is therefore surprised to find Mary to be a virtuous, intelligent and skilful manager of his estate. Eventually, they marry, neither of them recognising at the outset that it's not really a marriage of convenience as they believe but, rather, a love match between two equally matched and like-minded people.

The remainder of the story is a leisurely journey with Paul and Mary as they discover their true feelings for each other and take the first steps towards building a loving and lasting relationship.

As in The Duke and Miss Denny, nothing terribly dramatic happens in this story. Its charm is in the slow unfolding of the true nature of the two main characters as they come to value and desire each other sincerely and deeply. I liked this very much because of this lack of high drama, relishing instead the author's ability to create such rounded, well-developed characters. The story reminded me vaguely of Heyer's "A Civil Contract" wherein life on a country estate unfolds around a slowly maturing love. Recommended.

I couldn't really figure out why Lord Wyland fell in love with Mary so fast. Later he says it is her honesty, but she is not really honest with him in many ways. She hides her love from him. How was she able to resist his lovemaking? All because she thought he was in love with another woman? I can't believe they didn't talk even if it was in anger. Even the vicar was a sad and confusing character - if he cared for Mary why didn't he act on it in five years?

The buying of bonnets was a nice touch. The story was ok. I just kept waiting for revelations to explain why things were the way they were and the answers never came! I still had fun reading this book and have enjoyed others by Joy Reed -- but this will not be on my keeper shelf.

The usual orhpaned governess meets the usual richly endowed nobleman -- but there are some twists to this; for instance, he is a goody-goody in disguise, she is passionate and repressed. Unusually literate. As compared to run of the mill Regencies, a gem