Review: Looking forward to the rest of this new series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 12, 2014
Reviewed by Barb Taubfor TheRomanceReviews.comSometimes an experienced writer does everything carefully and well. Her main characters are three-dimensional and believable. There is an intriguing backstory with plenty of useful clues for readers along the way. But sometimes, as I was sad to see with A KISS OF LIES, the first book in Bronwen Evans' new Disgraced Lords series, the final result is still disappointingly less than the sum of these parts.Christian Trent, Earl of Markham, is a former darling of the ton, one of the famous Libertine Scholars. But after the trauma of Waterloo, he avoids society, convinced that his scarred face will repel everyone, especially the beautiful women whose attention he used to accept as his due. Falsely accused of raping the daughter of a duke, Christian is shanghaied onto a ship bound for Canada. Fortunately, one Canadian couple believes his story. His new friends help him prove his identity and they become business partners. When the friends are killed, Christian accepts guardianship of their twelve-year-old daughter, Lily.Christian hires Sarah Cooper, a widow with a mysterious past, as Lily's governess. As the trio voyage to England, Christian and Sarah are torn between their overwhelming attraction for each other and their concerns for Lily's welfare. Christian decides to stop over in Jamaica to visit fellow Libertine Scholar, Sebastian Hawkstone. Sebastian recognizes Sarah as the Lady Serena Castleton, daughter of a duke who sold her in marriage to a sadistic monster. Believing she's murdered her husband, Serena had disguised herself as a governess in hopes of fleeing to England. But she hasn't counted on the blazing mutual attraction with Christian. The return to England plunges the couple into resolving the plots surrounding them, threatening both their lives and their relationship.As a fan of Bronwen Evans, I was looking forward to reviewing her new book and to the introduction to her new series. The rating for this book is three and a half stars. As I said, all the pieces are there. But somehow, there is just nothing new. The way the tired old genre set pieces are trotted out--nobles in disguise, damsels in distress, the lord falling for the governess--the author might have been ticking them off on a checklist.There were also some unfortunately modern Americanisms ("sweetie", "honey") that pulled me out of the whole Regency feel. They feel out of place in such a straight on formula regency. The POV head hopping also got in my way in places. And despite the repeated references to Christian's man-buddies, the other Libertine Scholars, we saw a lot of libertine but very little evidence of anything remotely scholarly.I realize that this is just a fantasy, and that as a reader, I need to take some things with a grain of salt. However, for Sarah/Serena--a woman who has faced years of physical and emotional torture at the hands of her own husband--to respond romantically to Christian within about a day and with almost no PTSD trauma seems like a stretch.Sadly, the villains were too flat and one-dimensional to be much more than a macguffin as plot device. But without providing a spoiler, I can say that that the secretive villain behind Christian's false rape accusation does show potential as a Moriarty for future books in this series, especially if the author avoids the ho-hum motivation of scorned lovers.My fingers are crossed that the author will expand her obvious writing ability to step out of the comfort zone of the genre Regency where apparently at least fifty percent of the population of England are dukes, earls, marquises, viscounts, or their heirs. And I'd love to see her provide three-dimensional villains, a hero or heroine who is NOT your standard-issue aristocrat (even if masquerading as a commoner), and some believable support characters. Since I know from previous books that Bronwen Evans is a gifted author, I will be watching for the rest of this new series.