2.5 stars Three years ago, Seraphina “Sera” Bevingstoke, Duchess of Haven, miscarried her daughter (seriously this is NOT a spoiler, it happens in like the second or third chapter) and was persuaded by the Dowager Duchess of Haven that maybe it was best if she just disappeared. With financial help from her antagonistic mother-in-law, Sera flees her disaster of a marriage and goes to America, where she finds a business partner and something she enjoys doing enough to dull the pain in her heart. But […]
Wherein we find out even more about Stoker’s past
Spoiler warning! This is book three in a series, and as such, this review may spoil details from the two earlier books. If you want to start at the beginning, A Curious Beginning is the first book. Veronica Speedwell and her colleague and sometime partner in crime-solving, Stoker (Revelstoke Templeton-Vane) are alerted to the fact that Stoker may well come under public scrutiny in a criminal case. John de Morgan, Stoker’s former best friend and one time expedition partner, the man who ended up marrying Stoker’s ex-wife after […]
Being kidnapped on your wedding night and sent to a prison camp in Australia – gonna have a bad time
William “Liam” Devaliant, the fifth Earl of Lockwood, is overpowered and kidnapped on his wedding night in Scotland, taken south and chained onto a prison hulk on its way to Australia. No one believes his mad story about being an earl, or if they do, they don’t care. Four years later, he’s back in London, a very changed man, determined to enact his revenge on the man behind the plot to have him abducted, his own cousin. All the male retainers in his household are […]
Gambling to secure a future, winning a duke
3.5 stars Sophie Graham is twelve when she is orphaned and left in the care of her arrogant grandfather, the Viscount Makepeace. Her father, his second son, eloped with an opera singer (Sophie’s mother) and was summarily disowned. Sophie spent her childhood travelling through Europe with her parents. When both her parents die from illness, there is no one left for Sophie. Her grandfather sends her to boarding school, where she befriends Miss Eliza Cross, the daughter of an industrialist, and Lady Georgiana Lucas. Sophie’s […]