Sensuality Rating: Surreptitiously Steamy

Grant is known for her challenging heroines and here she stacks the deck against Kate by making her — gasp! — the anti-Elizabeth. Like her favorite literary heroine, Kate is often mortified by “a family that did not know the meaning of discretion.” However, she has no intention of following in Elizabeth’s footsteps:

“If Mr. Darcy, for example, had come to her with that first grudging proposal openly acknowledging his abhorrence at so lowering herself, she would have swallowed her pride long enough to choice out a yes. Affection and understanding could come afterward — or if they never came at all, she would have a good name and the grounds at Pemberley on which to build all the facility she required.”

Cut off from her father’s high ranking family because he married an actress, Kate’s goal is to help her sisters (and herself) by marrying her way back up the social ladder. Her exceptional beauty, charm, and perfect manners make her ambition fairly reasonable. If only she could find a way to attract the notice of eligible gentlemen. And if only she could stop noticing barrister Nicholas Blackshear.

The fortune hunting heroine is not all that new, but Grant gives it an interesting twist here by pairing her with someone just as snobbish and difficult in his way. Nick also has an “irregularity” in his family that he’s trying to live down — his brother married a former Cyprian. (See A Gentleman Undone – review here.) And though Nick quite properly cut his brother off, the scandal has still cost him success in his career. His only comfort is the sour grapes of convincing himself that the beautiful Kate Westbrook would be a terrible wife for him.

A plot summary makes both Nick and Kate sound appalling, but actually both are warmhearted, thoughtful people trying to do the right things in a society that has very warped ideas about what the right things are. I liked the genuineness of the situation here: Nick’s brother’s marriage really does cause him problems, and those aren’t easily wiped away, as they so often are in Regency romances. Part of what he has to learn is that giving up your family to please others isn’t worth it. And part of what Kate has to learn is that she can direct her talents and ambitions in a different direction.

This is the most smoothly written and gracefully plotted of Grant’s books so far. Referencing both Pride and Prejudice and Emma (there are parallels in Nick and Kate’s long-term friendship), it is somewhat Austen-ish in feel — insightful, intimate, and centered around a world in which behaving appropriately is all important. The downside of that is somewhat less emotional intensity — which perhaps is the right choice for these particular characters. Though not as astonishingly delightful as A Lady Awakened or as wrenching as A Gentleman Undone, it was very enjoyable, and I give it four stars. It’s available in several formats here.

Published by Bantam. Review copy provided by NetGalley.