As many of you know I've spent the last few weeks spreading the good word of Eileen Dreyer's new historical romance series Drake's Rakes. I fell deeply in love with the first book in the series, Barely A Lady and before I had even finished it, I was buying the second title, Never a Gentleman. If I thought Barely a Lady was a bold attempt to push the historical romance envelope, Never a Gentleman could be called downright audacious!
Audacious:
1. extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless
2. extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas
3. recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law or the like; insolent; brazen
Oh yes, one can absolutely describe Never a Gentleman as audacious, as it works on all those levels. Again, Ms. Dreyer takes some basic historical romance tropes and then sets about using them to tell a story that feels completely new and different. NaG, follows two of the characters featured in Barely a Lady, Grace Fairchild and Diccan Hilliard. Grace is the daughter of an honored Army officer who has followed the drum all of her life and is looking forward to the end of the war so that she can return to England and start her own life. Diccan is a suave diplomat, who plays the carefree bon vivant role perfectly, but in actuality is an important player in England's espionage and intelligence efforts. The two enjoyed a nice bit of business in Barely a Lady, with their witty verbal sparring and it was obvious that Ms. Dreyer was not finished with their story.
Never a Gentleman begins with Grace and Diccan finding themselves completely compromised. Someone has drugged them and placed them in bed together and also made sure that they are discovered. The time period and their social status being what it is, they are forced to marry in order to save Grace's reputation. Neither is particularly happy about this development, although Grace harbors a bit of a crush on Diccan and he respects and admires her wit and intelligence. Diccan is described as a very attractive, sexy man and Grace is said to be plain, tall and slightly lame. He's Cary Grant. She's abnormally tall and walks with a limp. OK, so we get it, he's hot, she's not. We see this all the time in romance novels and frankly, my one complaint about this book, involved the constant repetition of how plain Grace is. She's plain and gimpy, we get it already. Both characters try desperately to figure out how best to deal with their new reality, in light of the fact that they already had very specific plans for their lives. Complicating matters even more is the fact that Diccan has been ordered to romance some secrets out of a nasty female double agent. He knows that this fake romance has the potential to truly crush an already fragile Grace and indeed, it does. Grace meantime is surrounded by her loyal friends and admirers who are horrified to see their friend seemingly being used and abused by her new husband. Oh the angst!!!
Yes, my dears, this books contains even more angst per page, than my adored Barely a Lady! This one actually drips with angst as we watch two, basically honorable people struggle with a truly wretched situation that neither of them created. We've seen this horrific set up before, I was reminded of Jo Beverly's excellent book, An Arranged Marriage, but in the capable hands of Ms. Dreyer, this situation is taken to a whole new level. Dreyer boldly goes where other authors have feared to tread. Grace has a front row seat to her new husband's amorous efforts with the other woman and Diccan constantly struggles with the need to do his job and the fact that he is practically destroying his new wife in order to save his country. The actions and emotions that this situation brings forth are extraordinarily complex. There is no black and white here and that is what I love most about the book. Neither Grace nor Diccan is a bad person. Ms. Dreyer does a great job of exploring and exposing their thoughts and motivations as she puts them through this terrible emotional ringer.
A word of warning: Never a Gentleman is not for the faint of heart. This is no happy go lucky romantic romp. It demands a lot of its readers. I think to enjoy this book, you must be a person who understands that life is full of tough choices and less than perfect situations and it is the many ways that people find to deal with these situations and each other that makes life so intriguing. If you have a problem with infidelity in your romance novels, this one might not be for you. If you like things simple and cut and dry, then this one definitely isn't for you. If, however, you are looking for a historical romance that provides a ton of heart and substance, then you should be buying this book immediately. I cannot wait for the third book in the series, Always a Temptress. In this one, we finally get Kate's story and if the first two titles are any indication, it should be a doozy. Thanks again Ms. Dreyer for helping me remember why I love this genre so much.
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