NUMBER: 25TITLE: Beguiled
AUTHOR: Shannon Drake
STARTED: May 14, 2007
FINISHED: May 16, 2007
PAGES: 424
GENRE: Romance
FIRST SENTENCE: God, do not save the queen!
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] The murder of three antiroyalists drives the plot of Shannon Drake's historical romance set in the late 1800s, and so does an unlikely romance between a gently raised orphan and a very handsome highwayman. An encounter with the notorious highwayman would send most young Victorian women over the edge, but not Ally Grayson. Still, in a single week, she's been waylaid by the highwayman, found out she was engaged to a stranger (one who couldn't bother to show up for the engagement party), and been cursed. So much for the quiet, genteel life. It turns out both the highwayman and her fiancé, Mark Farrow, are on the hunt for the murderer. Ally seems attracted to both men -- until she realizes Mark is the highwayman. He's determined to keep her out of danger; she's determined not to be shut out of the investigation. She has a few theories of her own. Naturally they put her life in jeopardy, as do the family secrets that must never be revealed.
REASON FOR READING: I've enjoyed works by this author before.
THOUGHTS: This has got to be Drake's worst book. I've never really had a problem with her past novels, but this one was just plain bad. Drake spent more time throwing in characters from all her other books than actually writing the plot of this book. There was no chemistry between the characters. And, perhaps the worst part of all, the whole mystery of the novel did not work. It was just there, being a tangent that, in my mind, had no connection to the characters in the least. This book was a jumbled mess.
MISCELLANEOUS: At least I love the covers they slap on Drake's books.
RATING: 2/10 [Awful]