NUMBER: 39TITLE: A Deal With the Devil
AUTHOR: Liz Carlyle
STARTED: April 16, 2006
FINISHED: April 17, 2006
PAGES: 375
GENRE: Romance
FIRST SENTENCE: Winter along the Somerset coast was said to possess a certain bleak beauty.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] The acclaimed author of The Devil You Know pens a shimmering novel about a Scottish noblewoman on the run from her past and a powerful English lord brought to his knees by desire.
Aubrey Montford claims to be a widowed housekeeper. Desperate to keep her new post — and her secrets — she transforms desolate Castle Cardow into a profitable estate. Yet soon after her employer, Lord Walrafen, returns from long years of absence, Aubrey is suspected of murder. Sparks and tempers ignite whenever she and the smoldering earl meet, but he may be her only hope.
Walrafen returns reluctantly to the childhood home he loathes. Cardow is said to be haunted — by more than the earl's sad memories — but it was no ghost that murdered his uncle. Is the castle's beautiful chatelaine a murderess? At the very least, she's a liar — he has proof. Yet the truth of his soul is that he's drawn to her with a kind of fierce passion he's never known.
REASON FOR READING: It was there.
THOUGHTS: The chemistry between Aubrey and Walrafen left off the page from the first instance their characters met. There was more than one moment I found myself wondering if the room suddenly got hotter. While the sparks did indeed fly between the characters, I felt that the mystery part of the plot was overly contrived. It just did not flow as well as the characters did. I felt that the two parts of the book never meshed. The mystery was background to the romance, instead of being intertwined with it.
MISCELLANEOUS: For an author I randomly bought off of B&N.com, she does not disappoint.
KEEP/SHARE/CRINGE(?): PBSing
RATING: 6/10 [Good]
CR: Surrendern by Pamela Clare
RN: The Dewy Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr
Comments