Boom! Unusual Historicals for July 2024

July is always a lost month for me because while it does feature my happy birthday, it's also the one time of year where I have hard, stressful deadlines at work thanks to a July 1 - June 30 fiscal cycle. I'm closing out the books on the previous year and then figuring out how to bleed a stone allocating the incoming year's budget. Seriously, the next person I see online whining about how wait lists are too long and their library's eBook collection sucks better run and hide because I am full up y'all. 

But you know what calms stress? Books. Then throw some more books on top of those books. And this month's Unusual Historicals crop is a good place to start. I'm highlighting ten books this month!

A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess by Bronwyn Scott

A search for the truth

Leads to a discovery of passion!

After tragically losing her husband, Fleur is determined to expose the man responsible in a tell-all news article. Yet she’s thwarted by Jasper, the infuriating, rebellious—and undeniably handsome!—Marquess of Meltham, when she implicates his brother. His deal? They work to uncover the truth together! As sparks of hostility turn into sparks of desire, Fleur must decide whether her vendetta is worth the cost of losing her heart…

The final book in the author's Enterprising Widows trilogy that follows three heroines trying to rebuild their lives after losing their husbands in the 1852 Holmfirth Flood. This is a apropos book to wrap the series up with, the heroine determined to expose the man she feels is responsible but having to navigate around, and ultimately partner with, that man's brother.

A Cinderella to Redeem the Earl by Ann Lethbridge

There are two sides to every story

And to every earl…

Damian, the new Earl of Dart, has returned to England for one purpose: to exact revenge on those who betrayed his family. Having discovered his enemy’s daughter Pamela is now a cook, he hires her. But his plans for vengeance go awry when the beguiling Cinderella sparks an attraction that complicates everything. For if Damian continues with his plan, he will betray the only woman who could redeem him…

He's a hero hungry for a revenge. She's now a cook whose father is the target of the hero's vengeance. The sample I read provides a bit more detail, the hero actually answers his own door in ramshackle rundown manor (shocking the heroine) and our heroine is really his enemy's stepdaughter, her own (now dead) father was a vicar who indulged his daughter by letting her spend time in the kitchen growing up.  

Stranded with her Forbidden Knight by Melissa Oliver

Caught between duty…

And forbidden desire!

Lady Elowen is traveling to her loveless arranged betrothal when she’s rescued from a storm by Lord Simon Trebarr—the enigmatic knight whose family has long been enemies of her own. She should hate him, yet an unwanted attraction has always simmered whenever he’s near… Within the walls of Simon’s Cornish castle, can Elowen resist experiencing passion before condemning herself to a life without it…even if it’s with the man who should be her enemy?

Star-crossed lovers alert! Set in 14th century Cornwall, a heroine trudging her way into a loveless marriage is rescued from a storm by our knight hero, whose family happens to be her family's sworn enemy. 

A Vengeful King Rises by Sophie Barnes

The only thing more lethal than his need for revenge, is the woman who's tasked with bringing him down.

Adrian Croft dreams of quitting the shady business he stands to inherit, of settling down, and of raising a family free from a life of crime. But when tragedy strikes, this fanciful dream is destroyed. All he wants now is revenge. His anger, however, threatens to cloud his judgment, making it harder for him to recognize danger when it approaches in the form of a beautiful woman.

Trained for covert operations as part of a secret government program, Samantha Carmichael's mission is to give British law enforcement a reason to prosecute the most powerful man in the country. But when common sense and duty begin to blur, can she remain steadfast in her goal, or will her loyalties shift as she gradually loses her heart to the one man she cannot afford to love?

First in a new series that follows one couple and "the brutal challenges they must face" intrigues me for a hero who has inherited a criminal enterprise (and isn't overjoyed by that fact) and a heroine charged with bringing him down. 

The Play's the Thing by Margaux Thorne

Everyone’s a player in this love match.

Miss Anna Smythe is planning a romantic wedding to remember—only it’s not her own. After a youthful indiscretion left her with a broken heart and a tarnished reputation, Anna is more than content to sit on the sidelines and watch those around her find their perfect match. When her father, Sir John, informs the family that he’s ready for a second chance at romance with his childhood sweetheart, Anna is overjoyed to spend the summer with her future in-laws dreaming up a swoony future for the fortunate couple. Unfortunately, her happiness is not shared by everyone.

Lord Jacob Wright’s family may have come from nothing, but now that he’s stumbled upon a title, he’s not willing to mix with just anyone. The former journalist and new viscount can spot a fortune hunter from a mile away and Sir John is definitely one who has the audacity to set his sights on Jacob’s mother! A marriage between Sir John and Rose Wright will never happen—not on Jacob’s watch. Even when the Smythe family moves into Jacob’s home for a month, he is determined to kill the fledgling romance on the vine.

However, Jacob never anticipated Smythe’s daughter being a more than worthy adversary for his romance-poisoning plans. Anna believes in the older couple’s love even more than Jacob distrusts it and routinely thwarts all of his attempts to douse its growing flames.

To make matters worse, the more Jacob spends time with the starry-eyed Anna, the more he realizes she isn’t just another fanciful chit hell-bent on match-making. The delightfully enticing woman has a history, and Jacob soon discovers that Sir John isn’t the one person grappling with second chances. When an old flame reemerges in Anna’s life, resolute in starting where they left off, Jacob is determined to keep Anna by his side. Changing tact, Jacob becomes the romantic, fixed on showing Anna that even with his surly behavior and obstinate ways he’s the only man for her.

Can a few charming picnics, a hermit’s cottage, and chance encounters with circus strongwomen keep Anna from wondering about what might have been with her old flame?

Lord deliver me from back cover blurbs that want to tell the reader the entire story. Anyway, this second book in the author's Cricket Club series piques my interest for a "romantic" heroine who's fine with being on the shelf (for reasons) and the adversarial relationship that enters her life in the form of the hero, when their widowed parents, childhood sweethearts, reunite. I love a good adversarial romance, but they're really tricky to pull off.  Here's hoping!

Cast Vows by Ariella Talix

Danger strikes from all directions. Nothing is as it seems.

Nicolo Stark-James loves with his whole heart, but he finds there are despicable people who are willing to ruin everything.

Matty Remington needs to be safe, but he’s trapped. He has strong faith and a heart made for loving, but he needs to reconcile his love for God with his personal desires.

Eden Godwin might be the one to hold them all together, but her future isn’t her own to decide. She is pitted between love and saving her family from ruin.

Obligations are questioned, and promises are made that may not be kept. 

This is the third book in the author's Hearts of Gold series, all of which feature ménages and take place in 19th century California, this one being set in 1884 Los Angeles. I'm intrigued by that and also by the fact that one of the male characters is struggling with his personal desires and his faith in God. It's a theme we don't see a ton of in erotic romance. 

An Impossible Match by Sandra Sookoo

What the heart wants is sometimes at cross purposes from what is practical.

Miss Genevieve Hasting refuses to become a companion like her two older sisters. She aspires to loftier heights, and though she despises weak-willed men, society’s rules, proper deportment, and stays, she’s willing to suffer them all if it means winning a life of luxury without toil as well as a titled gentleman, except she’s been banished to her father’s country estate as punishment for too many scandals. It’s dull and there aren’t that many men to match with there.

Mr. Thomas Alderman is a country vicar who has enjoyed his living over the years. Though his good looks make him extremely popular with the ladies of his congregation, he hasn’t given marriage much thought, for in his youth, he had been quite the rogue, but he left that behind him when he received his calling to minister. When Miss Hasting slips into his church one glorious sunny morning, he’s thrown into confusion. He’s not that man any longer.

An unexpected courtship springs between the unlikely couple before either of them realizes it’s happening. Though Genna amuses herself while in the country by seducing the handsome vicar, he’s not what she wants for her future. And as much as Thomas adores revisiting the man he used to be, the man who bedded beautiful women like Miss Hasting, she isn’t the type of woman he needs by his side now.

Unless they stop hiding from their true desires, their summertime fling won’t develop into a lasting bond.

We get a lot of rakes in romance who meet the heroine, see the error of their wicked ways, then reform. It's the spin on that well-worn trope that piqued my interest in Sookoo's third book in her Hasting Sisters series. He's already reformed, and now a vicar, who finds himself tempted by an ambitious heroine determined to marry well and bag herself a comfortable life, which is proving difficult thanks her habit of courting scandal. 

London's Leading Lady by Jennifer Seasons

A passionate playwright, a headstrong lady . . . a love story for the ages.

Pragmatic Lady Carlotta Castlebury secretly adores the theatre. Enamored with the written and performed word, she writes play scripts in her journal, her most precious possession. One fateful afternoon in Hyde Park she loses it, only to discover soon after that the latest theatrical performance on Drury Lane sounds remarkably like her play. Yet the audacious liar taking credit for it is decidedly not her. Rather, the insufferable man is London’s most popular playwright, Thatcher Goodrich. Lottie is going to march down to Rhodes Theatre and give the infuriatingly sexy writer a piece of her mind . . . and most assuredly none of her heart.

The third son of an impoverished baron, Thatcher has made his way in the world with his wit and a deft pen. When his muse abandons him and leaves him wordless exactly when King William personally requests a new play, Thatcher does what any desperate playwright would do: he finds one and claims it as his own! He doesn’t expect the true author to barge into the theatre like a beautiful warrior queen and demand her work back.

Yet when His Majesty wishes another play, Thatcher must pen another with her, and the more time he spends with the insightful, clever lady, the harder in love he falls. Until something in Lottie’s original play rankles a dangerous foe, endangering them.

Now they must outwit a madman . . . or risk the final curtain falling on their lives and newfound love forever.

A lady who loses the journal where she scripts all her unpublished plays attends the theater to discover London's most popular playwright has found her journal and is now passing off her writing as his own. A hero with a case of writer's block does the unthinkable when the King requests a new play, and when he wants another? He has no choice but team up with the woman he's wronged. This is the fourth book in the author's Castleburys series. 

The Poet's Stern Critic by Mary Lancaster

An elusive poet clashes with an opinionated young lady…

Cornelius Vale, hard-working steward of his brother’s land, has another secret identity as acclaimed poet Simon Sacheverill. No one has ever met the mysterious poet – except the woman who once accosted him in a London bookshop and tore his works to shreds.

When he encounters That Girl again at a Blackhaven ball, he is appalled.

If only he knew, the girl in question, Lady Alice Conway, adores his poetry and is completely bowled over by the man. She too has secrets. She longs to play her own musical compositions in the great concert halls of Europe. And, disgusted by male physical contact, she refuses to marry. Unfortunately, she rejects a dangerous nobleman who hates to lose.

Despite frequent quarrels, Cornelius and Alice keep each other’s secrets and grow ever closer, incurring the ire of his old love and of the suitors determined to marry Alice.

As threats fall from all sides, will they risk everything to save each other? And if they do, is there even a way for them to be together?

A steward with a secret life as a popular poet and an ambitious composer heroine who has her own secrets. This is the fifth (and final?) book in the author's One Night in Blackhaven series. 

Tempted by the Highland Warrior by Michelle Willingham (reprint)

After suffering years as a prisoner of war, Callum MacKinloch finally breaks free . . . but his voice is still held captive.

Lady Marguerite de Montpierre tries to heal his brutal wounds and is captivated by the handsome Highlander. She faces her own impending prison of a loveless betrothal, though she is drawn to the fierce warrior who does not speak. Although a future together seems impossible, she is losing her heart to a man she cannot have.

But Callum refuses to give up on the angel who fought back against the demons of his past and gave him another reason to live...for her.

Originally published by Harlequin Historical in 2012, this third book in Wilingham's MacKinloch Clan series features a former POW hero now mute from the trauma he endured and the heroine nursing him back to health staring down the barrel of a loveless betrothal. Willingham has written some dynamite damaged characters in her day, I really need to dig this series out of my TBR.

Whew! Another month, another marathon list of Unusual Historicals. What are you looking forward to reading?

#TBRChallenge 2020: A Rake for Christmas

The Book: A Rake for Christmas by Ann Lethbridge

The Particulars: Harlequin Historical Undone, historical romance short story, 2011, available digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I like short reads, which means I gobbled up quite a few of these Undones and their spicier sister, Spice Briefs, back in the day.  The blurb tickled my fancy and I've enjoyed Lethbridge's work in the past.  Plus, hello - a Christmas read.

The Review: The Day Job has been something the past couple of weeks and partially because of that I've been struggling with reading. I had picked out an entirely different book this month, a Christmas SuperRomance that has been in my TBR since 2007 (!) but I wasn't feeling it, I was starting to get annoyed, and work being what it is I wasn't up for powering through a book that was likely going to end up a C read at best. So out of desperation I hit my digital TBR and found this Undone that I had yet to read (and it may be the last one in the pile!).

Lady Eugenie Hardwick made the mistake of falling for the wrong man. Shenanigans happened and he talked, causing a scandal that had to be hushed up and her banishment. Worse still?  She liked those shenanigans, making her a true wanton.  Now she's living away from her family, who no longer acknowledge her, in a duplex-style home.  On the other side of the VERY thin walls is Lord Richard Townsend who is a rake.  Eugenie has lost track of the women she's seen coming and going - and for that matter hearing coming and going. Which is leaving Eugenie all hot and bothered with no other recourse than to take matters into her own hands - wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Richard is getting distracted by the spinster next door. They've been exchanging slightly acerbic, witty letters back and forth (mostly about her cat sneaking under the hedge into his side of the garden....) and just as she can hear him with his latest opera singer mistress?  Um, he can hear her taking matters into her own hands - wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  Surely this will not do. An heir with no desire to settle down anytime soon, the spinster next door is not paramour material.  That is until she shows up late one evening to deliver an urgent message that was accidentally delivered to her by mistake.

We all know what happens next. And naturally since this is an Undone short story, it's definitely spicier than the typical Harlequin Historical offering.  I'm a sucker for heroines with dubious reputations and Eugenie is severely hot and bothered by this point - meaning she rather throws herself into the proceedings.  Richard is all rake, and isn't about to let this golden opportunity pass him by. Naturally what happens between them is something more.  Eugenie is now concerned about extracting a promise from Richard that he won't blab about their interlude to anyone and Richard?  Well he's more concerned about properly wooing and courting Eugenie - our boy has fallen.

I like to read short, so I'm not usually one to say "I wish this story was longer...." - but well, I wish this story was longer.  Eugenie's fall from grace is just lightly dusted over, and the timing between Richard breaking off with his latest mistress and bedding Eugenie is lightning quick.  Um, as in the same evening.  Opera Singer wants a deeper relationship, Richard says no, she throws things and storms out.  A few minutes later here's Eugenie showing up on his doorstep with the wrongly delivered message.  So, yeah.  A longer story would have meant more "courtship" through those acerbic, witty letters, and a few more palatable pages between Richard's assignations. 

It also would have meant the Happy For Now ending would have spun out a bit more.  I have no doubt these two will stay together, but there's a dynamite set-up for a Fake Relationship/Engagement which would have mined the respective family baggage for both Richard and Eugenie.

But it's a short story, and that's what it is.  It's problematic in some areas, but I enjoyed Lethbridge's writing and I enjoyed the story.  Plus it allowed me to finish the 2020 TBR Challenge by actually reading something in full.

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2020: The Lady Flees Her Lord

The Book: The Lady Flees Her Lord by Ann Lethbridge

The Particulars: Historical romance, 2008, Sourcebooks, Out of Print, Rights Reverted / Available Self-published digital edition

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: According to my notes I picked up the Sourcebooks edition of this historical romance (published under the author's Michele Ann Young name) at RWA 2009 (Washington D.C.). So yes, this book has been in my TBR for over 10 years. Don't hate the player, hate the game.  Anyway, I know I picked this up because, if memory serves, Sourcebooks was fairly new to the whole romance thing at the time and I knew that Young was also Ann Lethbridge, who I was familiar with from her work with Harlequin Historical.  So taking a flier to pick up this book, for free, seemed like a safe bet.  Ahem, even if it did languish in my TBR for 10 years....

The Review: I haven't read many historical romances so far in 2020 and this one went down like comfort food.  Like if macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes had a baby.  It didn't hold a lot of surprises, and it gets a wee melodramatic at the end, but the pages easily turned and I liked the characters.  It didn't change my life, but believe me I've stumbled on way worse lurking in the depths of my TBR.

Lucinda, Lady Denbigh is married to a vile man. Oh she once thought she was so lucky - a plump, full-figured gal who bagged a handsome, very eligible man - only to discover he only wanted her for her father's money and to be a broodmare.  Years into the marriage, she's barren, he berates her as a cold fish, and heaps emotional abuse on her.  Worse still, his gambling is out of control and he's fallen in with a distasteful crowd.  She has no choice but to flee in the middle of the night.

Through a series of happenstance she picks up an orphaned infant girl along the way.  Yes, it's the height of melodrama but stick with me here.  Anyway, Lucinda tries to find the child's "mother" fast because she needs to get the heck out of London.  But that doesn't happen, there's no time, and the idea of placing the child in a foundling home turns her stomach.  She's ached to become a mother, so why not now?  Plus the kid provides a certain amount of camouflage. Lady Denbigh, after all, is barren.

Original Cover

She ends up in Kent, renting the dower house from Lord Hugo Wanstead, a fact he only learns after he nearly runs her daughter down with his horse.  Newly returned from the war, where he was injured, Hugo finds his country estate in disrepair thanks to Dear Old Dad.  His injury pains him, he's Brooding with a Capital B, and wants Lucinda gone - only to realize 1) she paid a year's worth rent in advance (which, that's explained) and 2) he's flat broke and his estate manager was desperate for the infusion of cash.

We all know where this is going.  Hugo and Lucinda are a perfect match but she is holding back the mother of all secrets and he's got emotional baggage up the wazoo thanks to his father and a dead wife.  He's in lust with Lucinda from the moment he lays eyes on her - he's a rather large man and she's all soft, lush curves in all the right places.  Soon she's bringing him out of his shell, he's playing Lord of the manor, and everybody in town is taken with her.  But wouldn't you know it? Her past comes back to haunt her. Because of course it does.

This was a quick one-day read for me (and it's single title length - so right book, right time - a true Calgon-take-me-away read) although anytime Lucinda's husband is on page it's a tough go.  I understand that infidelity is a non-starter for a lot of romance readers, but seriously this guy is such an a-hole that you want him to get absolutely everything that's coming to him.  His emotional abuse is hard to read, berating her for her weight, her frigidity, forcing her on a diet etc.  He's also prepared to essentially prostitute her out, which is ultimately what tips the scales to her fleeing in the dead of night. 

Extricating Lucinda from Denbigh was a definite factor in the speed in which I kept turning the pages. This was Regency England, so a woman divorcing a husband, albeit an abusive a-hole of a husband, would not have been easy (heck, it's not easy now) and Lethbridge puts a clever bow on that particular package.  Oh sure, it's the height of melodrama and a bit out of left field but it IS interesting and I'm down with interesting.

The sex scenes got a bit purple for my tastes, but I believe these two crazy kids are well-suited and well-matched, although Lucinda reverting back a bit at the end to damsel annoyed me a tinch.  I liked this world that Lethbridge created, and since republishing this book she's followed it up with a sequel about one of the heroine's brothers.  Good, not great, but time I don't regret spending.

Final Grade = B-

Falling for the Highland Rogue

I've been reading romance, somewhat exclusively, for almost 15 years.  I know the genre has changed in that time, but sometimes it takes a book like Falling for the Highland Rogue by Ann Lethbridge (published by that old gray lady Harlequin no less!) to really hammer the point home for me.  If this book had existed 15 years ago a lot (yes, I'm tarring and feathering, but y'all know I'm right!) of readers on various listservs and message boards would have likely been clasping their hands to their chests and demanding smelling salts.

Charity West used to be a lady, but now she's a fallen woman.  Seen as nothing more than a common whore.  In reality she was a terrible whore, a cold fish with "clients," so when Jack purchases her contract, the madam is more than happy to oblige.  Jack is a gambler with his sticky fingers in a lot of pies.  Essentially he uses Charity like a gangster moll.  She's there to aid him in his criminal enterprises.  They're now in Scotland, looking to secure whiskey for Jack's club back in London.  Everybody knows the Gilvry's have the best whiskey in all of Scotland, even if they are running it illegally to stay one step ahead of the English taxmen. 

Logan Gilvry is the youngest brother (yes, this is book three in a series), with the face of an angel that often lead people to underestimating him.  He spies Charity across the room and whamo!  She's the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, but one look into her eyes and he knows this is a woman who will tell you down is up and like a fool you'll believe her right up until the moment she drives a knife in your back.  Plus, Jack is no fool.  He's playing at some sort of game, and Logan needs to figure out what it is.  In the meantime, to gain a advantage Jack starts arranging for Charity and Logan to spend a lot of quality alone time together.

This is a romance of two people who aren't terribly nice.  Logan and his brothers are criminals.  Oh sure, you can dress it up as romantic as you'd like - the Scottish working class sticking it to the evil, evil English - but they're breaking the law.  Period.  Charity is about as far from a nice girl as you can get.  Sure, it's out of necessity.  Jack is not a nice guy and if Charity has any hope of getting away from him she needs to get her hands on plenty of cash.  That means she'll lie, cheat, bat her eyes, seduce, and flaunt the assets that God gave her.  But you know what?

I adored both of them.  Hook, line, sinker, loved them both.

I tend to get frustrated when the message is, often, in the genre that the boys can be as bad as they want to be and we're expected to love them - but the girl?  She better be home skipping through the forest, singing to various woodland creatures, and baking cookies for poor orphan children, or else she's a no good skank who doesn't deserve him.  I love it (love it!), when the heroine's morals are just as dubious as the hero's, and better yet?  She doesn't apologize for them.  This is the way she is.  This is the hand that life has dealt her.  She made some mistakes, trusted the wrong man, but she's not about to roll over and die.  She's got to find a way and this is it - so deal with it boyo.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have a fit of conscience once she becomes emotionally involved with Logan.  But true to form, she goes about trying to save his ass by falling back on what she knows best, striking deals with less than dubious characters, batting her eyes, and lying through her pretty little teeth.  And Logan?  In typical hero fashion wants to save her.  The problem is saving her could very well mean bad things for his family.

As much as I enjoyed it all, the story did begin to lose steam for me in the final chapters.  The conflict of this story is very much like a continuity series - which is to say that the immediate villain is dealt with, but there's a puppet-master behind the scenes that is still at large.  I also wanted more of Charity's past.  The author tap-dances around it mostly, dropping us hints, and giving us a few crumbs for us to string to the whole thing together.  I found her character so interesting that I think I just wanted a lot more of this spelled-out for me so I could wallow in every glorious angsty minute of it.

The greatest compliment I can give this story is that it's different, in a good way.  It utilizes a familiar setting for readers featuring a historical back-drop that isn't anything new - but fills it with the type of characters that we hardly ever see.  Get your hands on it and save it for that case of Romance Genre Ennui that inevitably befalls every genre reader now and then.  In case of emergency: read this book.

Final Grade = B+

Lady Of Shame

Earlier this month I read and reviewed The Lady Who Broke The Rules by Marguerite Kaye, the third book in Harlequin's Castonbury Park continuity series.  I liked that story very much, and came to read it by way of a trade paperback 2-in-1 reprint (the series has been getting released as digital first here in North America), Ladies of Disrepute.  With a reprint title like that, it's only fitting that Kaye's story was packaged with Lady Of Shame by Ann Lethbridge, which also happens to be book four in the series.  Just like Kaye's story, it does feature some continuity conflict that carries over the entire series, but it also stands alone very well.

Lady Claire has come home, hat in hand, with no other options.  Her half-brother is the imposing elder Duke, and while there is quite an age difference between them (same father, different mothers), Crispin had always been kind to her.  Well, that is, until she disobeyed him and eloped with her now dead husband.  She was in love (of course) and naturally the whole affair ended in complete disaster (of course).  Her husband was nothing more than a grubby fortune hunter, a gambler and a wastrel.  Lady Claire has fallen far indeed, and her husband's death has created a new problem.  One that requires her to go home and beg forgiveness if she wants to keep her 7-year-old daughter, Jane, safe.

In residence at Castonbury Park is Monsieur Andre, a talented French chef whose culinary imagination is slowly withering in the stifling country atmosphere.  The Duke is so sickly and heartsick over the death of his eldest son he barely leaves his rooms.  There are no dinner parties to plan, no guests to dazzle with his cuisine, but the job pays well and it's the money he's really after, with dreams of one day opening up his own hotel in London.  When Claire arrives, with her delightful daughter in tow, he knows he's in trouble.  He is captivated by her sad eyes, charmed by the young miss Jane, and no!  No, this will not do.  He escaped France after the revolution and Napoleon.  The last thing he needs is to dally well above his station with a disgraced young widow who is determined to do the right thing in order to help herself, her daughter and her brother.  That is to say, she's going to remarry - and this time a man her brother would actually endorse.

Of course we all know where this is going.  Claire and Andre are immediately drawn to each other, although there is quite a bit of tap-dancing around the attraction.  Claire may have been ruined, but she's still the sister of a Duke.  It also doesn't change the fact that Andre grew up on the streets of Paris, worked his way up the ranks of the French Army, and initially only became a chef after he realized that chef's not only prepare food, they also tend to get fed.  After the insecurity of not knowing when you'll eat next, throwing a toque on your head and learning to cook is a small challenge indeed.  Besides that, Andre has a real talent with food.

I love Regencies of this sort because it showcases so beautifully how desperate life could be (and was) for women in the 19th century.  Certainly Claire is privileged, but even that won't save a woman when either she 1) makes a bad decision or 2) has a bad decision made for her "own good."  Arriving home to Castonbury Park she is legitimately fearful that the Duke could throw her out on her ass, and there's not a damn thing she could do about it.  So naturally she'll do just about anything to keep him happy, herself and her daughter safe.  So while she doesn't want to remarry?  She doesn't have a lot of options.  OK, she has no options.  None.

An attraction with the chef, one of the hired help, is not only disastrous for her, but it does nothing but reinforce the idea that she's a wanton woman with the most abominable judgement - even if, as the reader, we know that Andre is a great guy.  He is, also, a scared guy.  A man who is haunted by his life in France, and a man who came to England not only to make a name for himself but because England is safe.  These are two people who, after pasts lived in some dire circumstances, value safety quite a bit.

I really enjoyed this story tremendously.  It had a great upstairs/downstairs vibe, I loved the "ruined" heroine and I loved the fact that I got a hero who actually had a job.  Even better?  The romance is a passionate slow build and believable.  I believe that these two people could fall in love and live happily ever after.  Claire has sand and Andre is totally captivated by her.  I can imagine them taking the finicky ton diners by storm.....

Final Grade = B+