11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a very difficult book to put down, August 28, 2009
When Rose Golightly travels with her family to Hareton Abbey in a remote part of Yorkshire, she expects to witness the betrothal of her cousin. What she gets is something completely different. Within twenty-four hours of her arrival, her cousin is dead, her brother has been named the sixth Earl of Hareton, and Rose has fallen completely and inappropriately in love.
Rose is the older daughter and is considered somewhat off-the-shelf at the advanced age of twenty-five. She has lived perpetually in the shadow of her beautiful younger sister and has been content overall with her life. When she meets Richard Kerre, Lord Strang, she knows she's beneath his notice. The man is the picture of society, dressed and painted to the highest fashion and with a reputation for playing hard and fast. Rose is at first suspicious when Richard professes to have fallen for her at first sight, but he is apparently quite genuine in his feelings. There is one problem, however: Richard is already engaged to be married.
As Richard tries to determine who murdered the old Earl and therefore clear Rose's brother of any suspicion of wrongdoing, he also works to extricate himself from his commitment to another woman. Reputations and futures are at stake. If he breaks his marriage contract, it will not only ruin him financially but will also cause a scandal of epic proportions. Regardless of their feelings, Richard and Rose may be forced to turn away from a love that could only come once in a lifetime.
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"Yorkshire" is the first book in Lynne Connolly's Richard and Rose series. Set in the England of the mid-1700s, this novel will appeal to lovers of historical romance as well as to mystery buffs. It is very well-written, quickly paced, and intriguing, and once I picked it up to read, I had a very difficult time putting it down.
I'm not a fan of prologues in novels, nor is first-person narration my cup of tea. That said, Ms. Connolly pulls both of these literary devices off beautifully in this story. The prologue drops the reader in medias res and captures our attention very cleverly and concisely. After reading it, there is no way that the reader would not want to dive right in to the body of the work to find out exactly how Rose arrived in the situation she finds herself in. Likewise, the first person narration as told by Rose brings us close to her character, sharing her insights and her innermost feelings with us.
This story is filled with wonderful and colorful characters that are so full of life they almost spring from the pages. Of course we must love Rose. She is a practical and no-nonsense woman on the surface and professes to be content with her lot in life. But she's not, really. She yearns for beauty, the fine fashion of society, and the freedom to love whom she pleases. I found her to be a very "real" character, and by the end of the story, she felt like a friend to me. Richard as well is a pleasant surprise. When we first meet him, he is dressed like a peacock, bewigged, powdered and painted within an inch of his life, but we soon find out that under the gaudy surface lies a personality that shines. And equally fascinating are the secondary characters in this story: from Rose's younger sister Lizzie, whose practicality is at odds with her dazzling beauty, to the odious puritan minister who preaches Armageddon and self-denial while at the same time ensuring he lives in luxury.
The setting also comes to brilliant life in this book. Through Ms. Connolly's vivid imagery, I could almost see the crumbling disrepair of the house, feel the cold and damp within, and smell the dust and mold.
The book blurb on the Samhain Publishing website teases that this series is addicting. I can only agree. I enjoyed this book very much, indeed. Although "Yorkshire" is the only book of Ms. Connolly's that I have read to date, I have every intention of continuing with this series. And I shall be checking out what else this very talented author has to offer as well.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rose and Richard: Hot, Scary, Just perfect!, February 12, 2009
Sensible, shy, overlooked Rose Golightly never expected to realize that she had met the man of her dreams while he was lying half dead on the side of the road in her arms. However, the man, whose head lay on her lap as she tried to stop the bleeding from his wound, was lucky. He would live. The destroyed coach had been carrying 3 peers of the realm, and 2 perished in the accident.
However, was it an accident, or murder? How did this start....
Rose and her family have traveled to attend the marriage of her cousin, The Honourable Edward Golightly, to the only daughter of the Earl of Hareton. Shocked at the condition of the once renowned show house of the county, Rose, her brother James, who was third in line for the Earl title, and their sister Lizzy all stood outside of the former glorious mansion. Whatever could have happened? While standing staring at the horror in front of them, another coach pulled up discharging two handsome men and a lady who joined them in staring at the disaster in front of them. The newest arrivals were Lord Strang, his twin brother Gervase, and Miss Cartwright, Lord Strang's affianced bride.
On their first morning the Earl and his son were killed in a carriage accident, leaving Rose the sister of an Earl. However it quickly became known that the "carriage accident" was not an accident. The bindings had been cut, and the carriage was deliberately crashed in hopes of killing the occupants. Lord Strang survived the terrible accident, but only barely, thanks to Rose's care of him. If Rose had not been present, Lord Strang would have bled to death. When she had held him in her arms she had felt overcome with a deep feeling of caring and passion for the man lying in her arms.
Who wanted to kill the Earl and his heir?
This is the first book in a series written by the esteemed Lynn Connolly. This story is very British with an Agatha Christie type murder mystery, but with sex:>). I have been waiting years to find stories as fabulous, scary, and sexy as this one with a really excellent mystery in which people are taken out of their personal comfort zones and have to survive in a strange new environment that has suddenly become theirs through tragedy. The suspense never lets up, and everyone involved in the mystery is interesting and well rounded characters. This is an amazing story. The late great Agatha Christie could not have written this any better than Lynn Connolly. This is the first story in a series, and I cannot wait to see what Rose and Richard get themselves involved with in the next book. Congratulations, Ms. Connolly, you have created an intriguing group of people that readers will care about and will look forward to reading about in the next book full of sexy new adventures, as will I.
Susiq2, reviewer, Cata Network Romance
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