GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England
MY GRADE: C
SYNOPSIS: In the shelter of her country cottage, Sara Fielding puts pen to paper to create dreams. But curiosity has enticed the prim, well-bred gentlewoman out of her safe haven—and into Derek Craven's dangerous world.
A handsome, tough and tenacious Cockney, he rose from, poverty to become lord of London's most exclusive gambling house—a struggle that has left Derek Craven fabulously wealthy, but hardened and suspicious. And now duty demands he allow Sara Fielding into his world—with her impeccable manners and her infuriating innocence. But here, in a perilous shadow-realm of ever-shifting fortunes, even a proper "mouse" can be transformed into a breathtaking enchantress—and a world-weary gambler can be shaken to his cynical core by the power of passion... and the promise of love.
MY THOUGHTS: I don't have much to say about Sara. She's not your typical heroine because she's cavorting behind her boyfriend's back with Derek. She's a twenty-five-year-old author who writes under a pseudonym yet a little boy in her neighborhood asks her how her next book is coming along. Not sure how he knows who she is since the book uses a pen name.
I like Derek even though he has no scruples to speak of. He's around thirty but doesn't know his exact age, which is ridiculous. He was raised by prostitutes and they certainly would have know when or around the year he was born. He's written just like a character from the time this book was published, 1994, or one published earlier, and I do like that a lot. He's gruff. I like learning about his tough background and knowing about all the horrible things he had to do as a child to make money. I want to say I'm glad he got rich and did something with his life but some of the things he did to get said money makes me cringe.
His ex-mistress Joyce is a villain. I liked her terrible actions but not how she went about them. If you're going to harm someone or try to get revenge like she did quite a few times, including setting someone up to get raped, aren't you going to try hard to keep people from finding out you're behind it? Most would but not her. There's a scene (chapter 8) where Derek does something to her that's quite disturbing. I don't like at all how she was dealt with at the end after a major incident.
There's one ridiculous thing that runs throughout the entire story. Somehow everyone at Craven's just happens to have read a book of Sara's or had it read to them, and they think the fictional character Mathilda is real despite being told by Sara that she's fake. Many people claim to have seen her around town. It was funny the first time someone said it, the poor thing didn't understand what fiction meant, apparently, but the repeated spotting of Mathilda went on for far too long. One other thing that bothers me is that right at the beginning, Sara shoots and kills someone in defense of someone else, and it's basically swept under the rug. In real life the shooter would have to deal with it emotionally but Sara didn't deal with it at all.
I don't know what year this takes place nor the timespan but it seems like maybe a couple months, then the epilogue is around close to a year later. The story was just alright with almost all of it taking place at Derek's establishment, a brothel and gaming house called Craven's. It should have ended right after Derek and Sara got married since it dragged a lot after that. Too much talk of domestic things and clothes. I cannot put my finger on why I feel this way but I just don't think Derek and Sara make a good match.
This is my sixth Kleypas book and the fifth to get no higher than a C-grade. I had to abandon reading Midnight Angel in 2019 at around page 125 because it was so boring. The only one I've liked is Where Passion Leads.
