BEYOND SCANDAL by Brenda Joyce

PUBLISHER: Avon, 10/1995
GENRE: Historical Romance
SETTING: England, 1856
SERIES: St. Georges, #1
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: B

FROM PUBLISHER: Adoring and innocent, Anne Stewart was seduced by Dominick Saint Georges, Viscount Lyons, then brazenly abandoned on their wedding night. Now four years have passed, and England's most mysterious lord has returned to Waverly Hall.

Anne can never forgive Dominick for the shame he caused her. She is determined to resist his advances and ignore the gossip and speculations surrounding them, but shocking revelations and deadly intrigues are drawing her ever closer to her enigmatic husband, to whom she dares not surrender again - his secretive stranger who holds the key to her survival and her heart.


MY THOUGHTS: What an emotional roller coaster Anne and Dom are on. The story seemed like it spanned just a few months. Anne is from America and is twenty-one. She went to live with relatives in England when she was eleven. She has blue eyes and black hair. She's loved Dom since she first met him when she was an adolescent and is very hurt that he's abandoned her for four years, the entire length of their marriage. I have no idea why he did that to her. Dom is twenty-eight, has golden hair and golden eyes. I got a little tired of them not getting along and the misunderstandings. That alone was a bit boring. What was very interesting was the mysterious things that were happening to Anne. Several people had a grudge against her and they were leaving cryptic clues for her alone to let her know they were behind the scary incidents.

Anne is too passive. Dom is alright except for the fact that he has two illegitimate children by his mistress of five years. It's unclear if he had that mistress, or any others, while married to Anne. I'm assuming he did. Adding those kids to the story was unappealing to me and didn't really serve a purpose.

The cousins Anne's lived with since she was eleven, Felicity and her brother Patrick, were a disturbed pair and I enjoyed them in the story. I didn't really like Dom's mother, Clarisse, too much. She's a bitter, jealous woman, same as Felicity.

Things got a bit convoluted toward the end when Dom found out about his paternity and who's behind the shenanigans.

1 comment:

Diane D - Florida said...

This sounds really good to me, and I would read it. I checked my library's stock, but they don't have it.