Review: Not your usual Regency romance, but entertaining.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 14, 2012
The infamous rake, Lord Richard Hamilton, has finally chosen his bride--the very appropriate Miss Emma Grey.The ton approves, Lord Grey is pleased, Lady Grey delighted, and Emma is over the moon, but her uncle, (the blasted) Duke of Arden opposes the match, and Emma is ordered to move to the duke's estate to think things over.Richard Hamilton refuses to take things lying down and concocts a plan. A plan that should have brought the lovers together and had them married within a month. It was a simple matter of masquerading as the duke's gardener, compromising the lady, and then having the duke rush them off to Gretna Green.Alas, he underestimates the duke's intelligence and the tangled situation on the estate--never had he imagined that compromising a lady could be so difficult.His endeavors lead to a comedy of errors, charades, and knotty love affairs. Yet he forges ahead in spite of pesky house guests, a flea bitten mattress, his lovesick best friend, and a blackmailer.Just when things seem to be going well, someone is murdered (very inconvenient), and he happens to be one of the suspects (extremely inconvenient).His simple plan for winning the wager suddenly becomes ... a tad complicated.3.5. Stars. "Bloody blooming roses sprouting out of a fairy's arse!" Anna Wylde's unusual historical romance is not without charm. Hard to categorize, it's a mix of genres: historical romantic comedy with a murder mystery, and even a touch of the Victorian melodrama. The beginning almost put me off, I suspected the premise was going to be hard to accept, but the story improved as I read on. Despite the unlikely premise, and other flaws, it was funny, the characters rather endearing, the story told with quite a bit of wit. I liked Emma and Lord Richard, and the secondary characters were interesting too, especially the romance sub plot. I got into the swing of it and it carried me along. Often farcical, it made me laugh, mainly because the characters were so well drawn. I had to swallow my annoyance at some of the situations, where an earl wanders into a duke's house and insults the duchess, without first being announced, for instance, the ridiculous antics of the characters at times, and get into the spirit of the story. I did and quite enjoyed it.I liked this author's voice; I would consider reading another of her books.This book is available free to Amazon Prime Members. For the rest it is a very reasonable 99cents.