T. C. (TC) reviewed on + 244 more book reviews
Set in the Carolinas during the colonial period, this saucy Cinderella story concerns the unexpected seduction of a Methodist minister's plain and practical daughter. Susannah Redmond, who has sacrificed much of her youth to care for her otherworldly father and her three motherless younger sisters, buys an indentured prisoner named Ian to help with the heavy chores. When Ian washes and shaves his beard, Susannah finds (to her horror) that he's the devilishly handsome prince of her dreams. Though she fears he will seduce her innocent sisters, she is the one who loses her virginity and her heart to him. It turns out, of course, that Ian is actually the wealthy Marquis of Derne. When he returns to England to right the wrong done to him and recoup his title and riches, he takes the incredulous Susannah with him against her will. Amidst the glamour of London's high society, she realizes she has given her heart and her body to a man whose social standing is far above hers. Though she returns home to Beaufort, all ends happily in this lighthearted romance, which is sure to please readers who relish sexy period romps.
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Hardcover debut for veteran romance-writer Robards--the titillating story, set in 1769 in the Carolinas, of a minister's daughter who falls in love with the indentured servant whom she's purchased. Susannah Redmon, a 26-year-old spinster who's spent the last dozen years acting as a mother to her three younger sisters and helping her widowed father run the family farm, decides to buy an indentured servant at a public auction. Her choice falls on Ian Connelly--filthy, starving, and suffering from repeated beatings; before he can work, Susannah must nurse him back to health. As she does, she discovers, of course, that he's devilishly handsome. Soon the formerly prim minister's daughter--in an engaging Lady Chatterley-like situation--is romping about with her bound man in a most unseemly fashion. But the plot becomes thinner and more strained when Susannah, having finally decided to marry Ian, discovers him missing from his room (left in terrifying disarray, including a bloodstained mattress). She spends weeks imagining the worst, and when she does find him--at a wharf in Charles Town-- she's so overcome that she faints. She wakes to find herself on board a ship bound for England. Turns out that Connelly is nothing less than a marquis, returning home to deal with the ``enemies'' (his stepmother and half-brother) who were responsible for his plight...though there are problems still to come before the predictable happy close. A fairly enjoyable romantic read--until that heavily contrived last third.
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Hardcover debut for veteran romance-writer Robards--the titillating story, set in 1769 in the Carolinas, of a minister's daughter who falls in love with the indentured servant whom she's purchased. Susannah Redmon, a 26-year-old spinster who's spent the last dozen years acting as a mother to her three younger sisters and helping her widowed father run the family farm, decides to buy an indentured servant at a public auction. Her choice falls on Ian Connelly--filthy, starving, and suffering from repeated beatings; before he can work, Susannah must nurse him back to health. As she does, she discovers, of course, that he's devilishly handsome. Soon the formerly prim minister's daughter--in an engaging Lady Chatterley-like situation--is romping about with her bound man in a most unseemly fashion. But the plot becomes thinner and more strained when Susannah, having finally decided to marry Ian, discovers him missing from his room (left in terrifying disarray, including a bloodstained mattress). She spends weeks imagining the worst, and when she does find him--at a wharf in Charles Town-- she's so overcome that she faints. She wakes to find herself on board a ship bound for England. Turns out that Connelly is nothing less than a marquis, returning home to deal with the ``enemies'' (his stepmother and half-brother) who were responsible for his plight...though there are problems still to come before the predictable happy close. A fairly enjoyable romantic read--until that heavily contrived last third.
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