Rating: 3.5 stars
Christian Hawkes was a British spymaster during the Napoleonic wars and ended up spending years in a French prison after someone sold him out. Now he's free, but left destitute and mostly friendless. The Earl of Brundage, tipped to become an ambassador, hires Hawkes to locate his missing fiancée and a very valuable necklace (who was only on loan to the Earl) the young woman had in her possession when she went missing.
Hawkes would like nothing better than to tell Brundage to go to hell, but he needs money, and he also needs time to find enough evidence that Brundage was a French spy during the war (which has helped him rise to the position he's now in) and the man who betrayed Hawkes to the French. He most likely stole Hawkes' money too. Pretending to look for Brunage's intended will give Hawkes more time to find the evidence he needs.
Lady Aurelie Capet (a distant cousin to French royalty), Brundage's betrothed, has indeed run away. After discovering that Brundage was not the man she believed him to be, she saved, plotted and schemed to get as far away from him as she can. Alone and scared, she has managed to cross the English Channel and has found refuge in the Grand Palace on the Thames under an assumed name.
Hawkes dramatically arrives a few days later, staggering over the doorstep, bleeding profusely from a stab wound (or maybe a gunshot wound, I forget and I can't bother to go back and double-check). Either way, it's a serious injury and the arrival causes quite the uproar amongst the owners and guests. As the inhabitants of the Palace for several days had anticipated the arrival of a clergyman, there is initially some confusion as to the identity of their new, unconscious houseguest. Aurelie feels sympathy for the injured man and offers to care for him and sit by his bedside until he wakes up. Once he does awaken, it doesn't take long for the couple to fall head over heels.
Hawker never had any intention of reuniting a sheltered young woman with a villain like Brundage, but his revenge quest against the man becomes even more serious after he discovers what actually happened to Aurelie and why she felt she had no chance but to run away from him. Until Hawker can acquire the final pieces of evidence against the man, however, he is the one in danger. Brundage has accused Hawker of kidnapping Aurelie and stealing the valuable necklace.
Throughout reading the story, I kept wondering if Hawker (both the name and character) were inspired by Joanna Bourne's spymaster Hawker in The Black Hawk (a book I absolutely adore). I couldn't find anything in the acknowledgements about it, but I'm still going to wonder.
This was another enjoyable romance from Julie Anne Long, but readers should know that there is indirect mention of rape in the book, and there is a fair age gap between Aurelie and Hawker. I'm not a huge fan of insta-love stories, but this one is done well. There are some romances by Long that I re-read again and again, and while this was fine, I don't think this is one I'm going to revisit multiple times.
Judging a book by its cover: I don't know what cover designers have against Julie Anne Long's romance novels. Most of the covers in this series are absolutely dreadful. There are so many things that just seem off with this cover. The weird pose while kissing, which seems like they'd both get neck and/or back pain. His hair. Her dress, with skirts that seem to take up a third of the cover. The kiss also looks awkward. Not great, Avon, you can do better.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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