Review: Presequel To "The Rake"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 1, 2012
Mary Jo Putney writes great historical novels and this is one of them.  The book comes before her book "The Rake" which is an all time favorite.  I guess I could say readers should get both books although "The Rake" is a deeper book as it deals with alcoholism.  In the Diabolical Baron Ms. Putney writes about how a young girl is coerced by her father and stepmother into agreeing to marry an older, wealthy man that she is rather frightened of.  Lord Radford (the fiance) has decided that he needs to marry to have an heir.  He prefers a someone who will allow him to carry on with his life as he wishes to live it, therefore Carolyn (actually he draws her name out of a hat from a number of candidates his more socially aware friend has collected)  Carolyn has a aunt Jessica, her mother's sister who will accompany her to her fiance's home to act a chaperone.  It turns out Jessica knows Lord Radford from years before when he was Justin Kincaid.  Justin and Jessica had met during the hunting season and both being great riders spent time together and Jason proposed to Jessica.  There was, of course, the usual misunderstanding and since then had not met.  At Lord Radford's Carolyn meets Richard Dalton, recently returned from the wars on the continent who has his secrets (we know them, she doesn't).  There is the usual story of people finding themselves promised to the wrong person, but Ms.Putney writes well and keeps one interested in the outcome.  In this story Reggie Davenport is introduced and in this book he isn't very nice.  However in the book about Reggie, "The Rake" the story tells about his life to this point and you can understand him better. I enjoyed this book would recommend it to all.