Mini-Reviews: The De Bryun Sisters Duet

My last couple of contemporary reads have been misfires, which left me in a state of uncertainty in figuring out what I wanted to read next.  A historical seemed the most logical answer, but what historical?  I opted for Christine Merrill.  Merrill's books sometimes work for me and sometimes don't, but I am never, ever bored.  Merrill takes risks with the Regency and sometimes those risks don't always play out - but you know what?  I'm never, ever bored.  Plus having a TBR pile that can be seen from space means I had both books in the de Bryun sisters duet in my digital TBR.  Nearly sitting side-by-side.  Loosely connected to the Belston & Friends series, these two books stood alone well.

In The Truth About Lady Felkirk, our heroine, Justine de Bryun is masquerading as the wife of an unconscious man, our hero, William Felkirk, brother of a Duke.  Justine is under the control of a Mr. Montague, the man who was once her dead father's business partner (jeweler) and now her guardian. In the name of protecting her younger sister, off at school, Justine is essentially an unwilling mistress, a captive and manages to save Felkirk's life when he gets too close to the truth about some long missing diamonds.  She convinces Montague to let her take the man back to his family, pray for his recovery, and maybe she can learn the location of the diamonds.  It's a miracle Felkirk survives, but he's awake now and with selective amnesia.  A blessing for Justine who, not knowing any other way, tells the Duke and his wife that she and Will were married via elopement.  Now here's William, wide awake, with no memory of his "wife."

Distilling down to it's essence, what we have here is a Rescue Fantasy, which I normally deplore - but Justine is one of those heroines who is one part crafty and two parts stuck between a rock and a hard place.  After her father's murder, and her mother's death, she and her sister are at the mercy of Montague. To protect Margot, Justine took the part of sacrificial lamb.  She's completely at his mercy even as she skirts around the truth looking for a way to achieve her and her sister's freedom.

It all gets a little melodramatic at the end, and the "mystery" of the missing diamonds isn't much of a mystery, but the Sword of Damocles-like tension that hovers over the romance (ooooh, when will William's memory return?) kept me invested and the pages turning.  Not a knock-out read, but an enjoyable one.

Final Grade = B

I literally jumped right into Margot's book after finishing the last word of Justine's.  A Ring from a Marquess has plenty of problematic elements that I probably should have loathed, but dagnabit, I could not tear myself away from this story!

With Montague dispatched, and Justine wanting nothing to do with the jewelry store where she has nothing but unhappy memories, Margot is now a businesswoman.  She's had to let go of two goldsmiths wanting to marry her and take over HER business, but other than that?  Things are going well.  Especially since her best customer is Stephen Standish, the Marquess of Fanworth, heir to a Dukedom.  Standish has a reputation as a rake, a bit of a cold fish, which has everyone from Justine to her current goldsmith warning her off.  But she enjoys his visits and much flirting ensues.  That is until she inadvertently sells Stephen a set of rubies that once belonged to his mother.  Um, they were stolen from his mother.  Needless to say, he wants revenge against the woman who played him for a fool and an indecent proposal is agree upon.

So yeah, this is distasteful in the extreme.  In order to keep her independence, to save herself and her shop, Margot coughs up her virginity to Stephen.  Blessedly, the truth about those stolen rubies comes to light about 30% of the way through the story.  But does Stephen tell Margot this?  Of course not.  Instead, completely besotted, he wants to marry her.  And to do that he concocts a plan with her brother-in-law to get her to agree.  Margot is strong-armed into marriage to Stephen, by him, her brother-in-law and Justine.  Justine doesn't come out looking all that great in this book if you haven't read the previous one.  She's spent her whole life wanting what is best for her sister, protecting her - to the point where Justine was Montague's unwilling mistress.  So really, Margot marrying the heir to a Dukedom?  It's not like she's sending her to the gallows.

This is a couple that doesn't communicate with each other - well, at all.  But Merrill, she's a crafty one.  She gives Stephen a stutter.  D's and P's are especially hard.  And his father, the Duke, is a horrible, awful man who rode Stephen mercilessly to the point where Stephen chose avoidance and silence.  When he has to speak he chooses his words very carefully (avoiding sounds that exacerbate his stutter), but preferably he prefers to rarely speak at all.  Leading to his reputation of being "just like his father" - as in, a complete and total asshole.  So yes, it's completely believable that Stephen would have trouble communicating with his new wife.

Ah, but these two crazy kids are perfect for each other.  We just need to get them to the point where they can talk to each other.  And they do, and it was wonderful and I completely wiped my mind of any niggling little issues I have with Margot feeling railroaded into marriage.  Also, bless her heart, but Merrill does not whitewash the consequences of Stephen marrying a "shop girl" even if she's, by marriage, part of the Duke of Belston's family.  There's also the minor fact that Margot has no plans, whatsoever, to close the jewelry shop - even though everyone, including her husband, expect her to.  How Merrill resolves these issues is very satisfying and frankly appreciated, when other authors have chosen to simply sweep issues like this under the rug.  The fact that Merrill did not?  Gold star from the librarian!

Final Grade = B-

I inhaled both of these books in a 24 hours period and they did just the trick of pulling me out of the mini-slump the unsatisfying contemporaries left me in.  Happy, happy sigh.