Helpful Score: 1
Back Cover Reads....
Left at the alter after her first and last season, Jemima MacKinnon, via her social group, the Ladies, strives to right wrongs inflicted on women in similar situations. Their latest case, however, cuts close to home as it involves Lord Bellaire, the only person who made her come out bearable. Feeling twice betrayed fuels her need to expose his crime and leads her to extraordinary action. However, as both Jemima and Lord Bellaire soon discover, not all is what it seems. Parker, who writes contemporaries as Laura Castoro, takes the best of historical romance and traditional Regencies and melds them into an emotionally rousing story. Minor strains on suspension of disbelief are easily set aside in light of the strength of characterization and wordsmithing. Jemima and Bellaire's relationship is stormy in the best sense, showing them in their flaws as well as their strengths, and Parker's characters suffer the consequences of their actions, making them stronger and better for it. In the process, society becomes as much a character in this book as any human in a story topped off with literary allusions that pay homage to the likes of Austen and Dickens and that will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.
Left at the alter after her first and last season, Jemima MacKinnon, via her social group, the Ladies, strives to right wrongs inflicted on women in similar situations. Their latest case, however, cuts close to home as it involves Lord Bellaire, the only person who made her come out bearable. Feeling twice betrayed fuels her need to expose his crime and leads her to extraordinary action. However, as both Jemima and Lord Bellaire soon discover, not all is what it seems. Parker, who writes contemporaries as Laura Castoro, takes the best of historical romance and traditional Regencies and melds them into an emotionally rousing story. Minor strains on suspension of disbelief are easily set aside in light of the strength of characterization and wordsmithing. Jemima and Bellaire's relationship is stormy in the best sense, showing them in their flaws as well as their strengths, and Parker's characters suffer the consequences of their actions, making them stronger and better for it. In the process, society becomes as much a character in this book as any human in a story topped off with literary allusions that pay homage to the likes of Austen and Dickens and that will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.
