Review: Too short, but it's a nice way to fill a half hour or so
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 7, 2013
Phoebe Hartridge is thrown from her horse when she is out riding one cold winter evening.  She is knocked unconscious and when she regains consciousness her horse has disappeared and she is stumbling around a bit groggy when suddenly two thugs appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and accost her.  The mildest intention they have toward her is to rob her so it looks like things are not going to turn out very well for Phoebe.  Then a knight rides in on a white horse (okay, I'm not sure it was white) and in the mildest tones possible tells the thugs that he thinks there must be a misunderstanding because he thought he heard the lady tell them no.  He further very calmly states, "You seem to have heard something different."  Of course, he is pointing a loaded pistol at them at the time so he didn't need to say a great deal in order to get his point across and the thugs very quickly remember that they need to be somewhere else like, right now!  Then they make tracks!Phoebe's rescuer is Anthony Sterling who had been a captain in the Royal Navy until he was wounded on the battlefield.  He received a cut across his face which left a pretty significant scar and he also lost his right leg. Incidentally, he lost a fiancée too.  It seems that the lovely Angela Donahue was not real excited about the prospect of having a husband with a leg missing and she found the scar on his face so repulsive that she could not even look at him.  She gave him back his ring and told him that no way can she marry him but then she learns that he has just inherited a distant relative's estate and title so she has second thoughts and decides she will marry him after all. In fact, she is so sure of her success in getting him back that she has been telling everyone that the engagement is back on and she shows up at Anthony's house to "get her ring back" because she has decided to marry him after all.  I was very eager to see how Anthony would handle this fickle (ahem) woman, and I had a few bad moments while I waited to see if he would be stupid enough to take her back.My biggest complaint with this book is that it was too short.  I wish it had been a full-size book because I really liked Anthony and Phoebe and I would like to have seen the relationship between the two of them develop a bit more.  I still enjoyed the book and recommend it if you are interested in a little light reading to fill 30 minutes or so.