Rating: 4 stars
Buzzword Reading Challenge 26: Me/My
Buzzword Cover Challenge 26: Wearable accessories (the cape!)
Defeating the Goblin TBR: The Dusty Book (has been on my TBR since 2016)
Monthly Keyword Challenge: Keep
Everyone believes that Giselle Whitby, is dead. Four years ago, she had to fake her death to escape her sadistic, controlling and abusive husband, the Marquess of Valence. To make sure there was no doubt of her demise, Giselle made sure the boat she and her stepdaughter were on exploded, in sight of half of London society. Conveniently, Giselle was wearing a very expensive diamond necklace at the time, meaning she escaped with a large share of her husband's fortune. Since her disappearance, Giselle has been in hiding, establishing a network of associates, helping other women in abusive relationships escape their husbands. Now she has discovered that Lord Valence plans to marry another young lady, and she has less than a week to stop him.
Because one of her usual co-conspirators is off to Scotland to get married (to the stepdaughter who also escaped four years ago), Giselle needs to find another man who can help her foil her erstwhile abuser's marriage plans. She finds James "Jamie" Moncrieff drunk in a tavern and decides he will serve their purposes well enough. Once he sobers up and has a bath, Giselle and her partner (her husband's former valet) discover that he is a former war hero, still struggling with PTSD and guilt from the Napoleonic War. He is also the illegitimate son of a duke (because his father, the duke, married his mother a few hours after he was born. So he's the eldest son, but has no claims to the title. He is tall, muscular, handsome, charming, intelligent, deeply honourable, excellent at cards, great with horses and looks spectacular in evening wear. Does this man have any flaws at all?
Aiding Giselle in her plans is the Dowager Duchess of Worth, who is tremendously wealthy and appears mad as a box of cats every time she appears in public. To support her eccentric reputation, she collects chicken memorabilia (everything from carved birds, porcelin and even jewelled chickens) and even has a pet chicken with her every time she leaves the house. Her son, the current Duke of Worth, is concerned for his mother and keeps trying to get her to move in with him, without any luck.
Giselle is described as a beautiful and accomplished woman, a bit of an ice queen, but thanks to her sadistic ex, is covered with scars on parts of the body fancy gowns would normally cover. With the impressive collar of diamonds she escaped with, she could have fled far away from England and made sure there was no chance her husband could ever find her. Instead, she has the Dowager Duchess sneakily selling off the diamonds to fund her rescue operations, and has gathered a network of concerned helpers from all layers of society to give these battered women safe havens when they've been successfully disappeared.
As far as I can tell, this is Kelly Bowen's debut romance novel, the first in her Dukes of Worth trilogy. Goodreads tells me that I read the third book in the series back in 2017, but didn't find it too impressive. In her later romances, Bowen basically has all her heroines be impressively competent in a number of fields, and all the men who fall for them are happy to play a supportive role in these women's lives, while clearly also adoring them. There are traces of that here as well, but since the entire plot takes place over the course of about a week, I think Giselle and Jamie fall for each other implausibly quickly, especially considering Giselle's previous abusive relationship. I was entertained enough that I'm going to want to read the second book in the series as well, featuring the Duke of Worth and his mother's mysterious ladies' companion. Also, I wish Bowen still wrote traditional historical romance; she was really good at it.
Judging a book by its cover: I literally have NO idea what this cover has to do with the book, except for the cover model being a blonde. This is a fairly dark novel, with protagonists who have gone through a lot. Absolutely nowhere in the book does Giselle put on a big red fur-lined cloak and dance about in the snow. She mostly stays hidden and wears plain clothing so as not to attract attention. I also don't think the book is set in the winter. What were the design team thinking here? With all the red and white, it also makes it seem like a Christmas book. It is not.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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