Sorry for the LONG review, but I owe it to other readers in providing a good enough detail in order to make the best informed decision on whether or not to invest in a book. I am sure glad that other readers take the time in providing such eloquently detailed reviews so that I don't have to, and for that, I thank you.
Contrary to one reader's suggestion of reading this trilogy in order, I am extremely glad that I chose to read the sequel to this book, "Ravishing the Heiress" first, since the summary captioned in the book's back cover seemed far more intriguing than this one. Well thank goodness for "gut instincts." Although this book starts off well with what should be a promising storyline, into a trite and unrealistic story.
This story takes place in the same year that its successor, "Ravishing the Heiress," takes place. In this book too, our author had our lovers meet one another eight years ago when our flaming beauty is already married to her first husband and becomes completely obsessed with her, to the point of establishing a scientific statement based solely on his obsession. Upon meeting the beauty's husband one day, he is recognized immediately as the Harrow player that almost needed to be offered a fork in order for him to devour her more thoroughly since it was so obvious the effect said beauty had on him (eyes rolling here).
Eight years later, our heroine is widowed for the second time and is attending a lecture/seminar at Harvard University given none other than by our hero, the Duke of Lexington, since he is an acclaimed scientist back in England. He answers audience questions on Natural Science and in one of his responses, he pretty much gives his analysis over his take on the very beautiful woman that he was totally obsessed with when needing an example to his response. Naturally, our heroine immediately knows that the Duke is speaking of her and is furious with his terribly insulting opinion of her. Within this outrage, she ponders her sister's advice of getting the duke to madly fall in love with her by engaging in a heated affair with him and then when he is in love beyond reason, to crush his heart by ending the affair abruptly. And this is where the story starts to go downhill from here for the following reasons (CAUTION - There might be spoilers in the below analysis of this book):
1. This advice is coming from the formerly virginal sister (Helena, whose story we will get to read in the third installment to this series) that had to be escorted to America in order to keep her apart from her beau, who is a wealthy and married man she had been carrying on with for quite some time and no matter when and no matter where. Not to mention, Helena is being whisked away because she seems to break out of the house to engage in her clandestine affair with said married man and our heroine and heroine's sister-in-law (the protagonist to Ravishing the Heiress) have had to remove from England for a while in order to tame and control because her wild and reckless ways will one day tarnish the family's reputation beyond repair.
2. Our heroine books several nights in the New York hotel where our wonderful Duke is staying in order to set her plan, or rather her sister's plan in motion. She had left her sister and sister-in-law back at the Harvard campus because she had coincidently heard that the Duke was leaving for New York two days prior to them arriving in New York. What kind of older sister abandons her youngest sister, and sister-in-law who are only 18 years of age alone in an American city back in 1888?
3. Our heroine books passage on the very same ship that the Duke does as a German baroness. She undergoes a complete disguise where she is always dressed in lavish gowns with a matching veiled hat that no one can see through and identify her. She only speaks German in order to hide her British accent, since she is extremely fluent in the language and hires a French maid to attend to her needs while on board; let's not forget that she is also extremely fluent in French as well. But our Duke is completely drawn to this mysterious woman and when he sees her aboard the Rhodesia, the liner that is to take him back home to London, is completely enthralled with despite the fact that he has very intimate dreams with the obsessed love of his life, Mrs. Venetia Easterbrook. Come on here, the baroness' poise, elegant walk and elegance completely reminds him of his love obsession and that veil must have been REALLY, REALLY thick that even he, the expert on her looks can't even identify with during their morning walks, after-dinner trysts and passionate lovemaking? - Um, are we really that naïve and unintelligent readers here? And what is up with authors constantly writing about Victorian era romances about women hiding their identities underneath a veil, so much so, that they even have to make love with the silly attire so as not to be recognized? - It felt as if I was reading A Seduction in Scarlett by Sara Bennett all over again, except the hidden identity was on a ship liner as opposed to a brothel.
4. When the Duke and the alleged baroness get down to the good and dirty of intense lovemaking with her veil on, with the lights off, with him being blind-folded, the man can't even guess who she really is? He even had the opportunity to simply turn on the lights after she was deeply asleep beside him for a whole night through, but he chose not to do such a thing because he must stay true to her wishes and take a strong position against Natural Science by claiming that "it's not all about a pretty face?" The crap is flying everywhere here!- Loads of crap, I must say.
5. Chapter after chapter, the author kept reminding us that this heroine was no ordinary beauty, but her beauty was so intense that she literally stops traffic wherever she goes (accidents on the road have even been caused because of captivated on-lookers), that men are always at a loss for words and always seem to be devouring her as if it were their very last meal evidenced by the mouth dropping wide eyed looks upon their faces, and the intensity of the beauty is so much so, and I paraphrasingly quote here, "that the sunshine rays illuminate her beautiful face as if she were part of the heavenly bodies ? She must be an angel sent down to earth or was truly blessed by the Lord with beauty beyond that of Aphrodite--How truly real is this character? Well, according to our author, she is so strenuously beautiful that while she was marrying our Duke, the pastor was at a complete loss for words and couldn't even start with the ceremony because even he, a man of God was so affected by her out of this world beauty. Furthermore, our heroine knows the effect she has on the general population that she even assists the pastor in telling him what the next step is in a marital ceremony. COME ON HERE... This is such a big load of crap and I am drowning in it!
6. Our author tries to bring her down to earth and add a little bit of intelligence to our heroine by making her a complete advocate to the world of science, and not just any science, but to paleontology while she is still at it. I think this was a bit too over the top and a desperate attempt to have this heroine possess at least one little quality in common with our science loving Duke and reason enough to consider them the perfect match. After all, he does have to win and the story does have to end in a "Happily Ever After."
7. Our Duke reaches his epiphany of guessing the true identity of the alleged German baroness to being that of his obsession the out of this world and totally divine beauty Mrs. Easterbrook at a mere whim and then the traditional formula of "You lied and deceived me and why did you do it" and "I must guard my heart and never let him know that I truly love him" steps in to bring the closing chapters to a sudden rush of incoherent unrealistic endings. I was already drowning in crap by the time these events came about.
Having said the above, I can only generously rate this book 3.5 stars (because of the at times, sexy lovemaking scenes and good vocabulary words used at times by the author that I may have pulled out my dictionary once or twice) and truly thank the Divine Forces for intervening with the story our author unfolded in the sequel to this book, because in my opinion she totally botched this one up. The characters were completely flat, the story was completely unrealistic, a very formulaic process was followed to lengthen this book and ultimately give us readers the "Happily Ever After" we so desperately seek and love, but totally failed in this book.
SPOILER -> This heroine continues to have this "DIVINE" beauty that it is also mentioned in various chapters to the sequel "Ravishing the Heiress" of this book. After reading both books within one day apart from each other, I need to put on my polarized, UVA/UVB protected sunglasses because the beauty was that ginormous! Lord SAVE ME, PLEASE from having to deal with such out of this world beauty that results in road accidents, the clergy to stumble and stagger for words so as not to be able to recall the phrases needed to be spoken at wedding ceremonies (Do you so and so take so and so to be......) because they also become so heavily tongue tied and for the opposite sex, or for members of any sex to just want to pull out their forks and completely devour me in one place setting!
