Review: An amazing and very different Regency romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2013
This is a very different kind of Regency romance. The Duke of Darlington is a hero like none other. At first glance he seems to be a classic Regency rake with an almost non-existent sexual morality. The heroine, Katherine, is blunt to the point of rudeness. She has been in charge of keeping her impoverished family viable for too long to take a submissive role.Her sister, lovely as she is, has been married to Benruin, a bluff man without the graceful charm of the Duke of Darlington. At the point of being ruined, Katherine takes a hand but in the process becomes Darlington's target.He sees something in Katherine that he needs, though at first he doesn't seem to know what it is. His ruse, to enable him to stay with her in her country home, is fantastic. Dressed as a woman, he is all woman. I am reminded a little of Georgette Heyer's, The Masqueraders, where the heroine's brother makes a better woman than Prue herself.The fascinating thing is that as Darlington and Katherine come together, his femininity and her masculine brain become the perfect foil for each other.I loved the characters, and the revelation of Darlington's past in particular. I can't resist a tortured hero. But in the end the real 'hero' of the book is Katherine, who takes control and achieves with the panache and keen intelligence usually reserved for the male of the species.This did surprise me a little because for most of the book I was focused on Darlington not realising how his influence was working to bring Katherine to the fullness of who she was meant to be.This story kept me up late because I couldn't put it down. The Duke of Darlington, Jude, is a hero you aren't quite sure whether to love or hate and the heroine feels exactly the same way. Whatever else he is, he is fascinating. Like watching a train wreck you cannot drag your eyes away.I love a tortured hero and Jude is tortured in spades. The reasons why are gradually revealed to Kit, Katherine Sutherland when he blackmails her into aiding his flight from London.Kit is a very different heroine, also moulded by the disasters of her childhood. Rough and ready, she makes a poor debutante. None of the men her sister introduce make any impression on her but one encounter with the man in black at a Soiree changes everything. Fascinated and disillusioned all in one night, her blunt truthfulness may be just what the Duke of Darlington needs to make life worth living