This book has such a promising premise.
Not necessarily historically reasonable, but, heck, it's a Regency, right? Some allowances are built in. I was totally willing to go with the idea of the sister stepping in to run her brother's thoroughbred race horse breeding business when he's badly injured in a carriage crash, and needing to hide that fact.
But we are supposed to believe in the high moral and ethical standards of Lord Chalifour, and his determination to clean up racing. He's a good guy, really!
And from the first moment he meets Lucy Goodwin, sister of his proposed business partner Lucien Goodwin, he wants to seduce her. She's a friend of Lady Monique, the sister of a Duke, received by the ton, and he has no hesitation about introducing her to his own sister, Elizabeth. She ought to be within the protected circle even for Regency England, at least in a Regency novel.
Yet her enjoyment of riding, and other normal, ordinary signs of not being dead, is described as being "a temptress." He thinks her ability to go from the "temptress" mode of enjoying a good ride to "respectable" mode of talking with his sister is strange.
Maybe it's the times. Maybe I'm being affected by the news. I hesitated to write this at all.
But I'm not willing to accept a powerful man who decides to seduce a woman he perceives as not being of a status that requires his decent respect as being a romantic hero of high moral standards. The "happy ending" just irritates me.
Maybe I'm being unfair. That's the breaks. I can't recommend this book.
I received a free electronic galley of this book, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
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