The first historical I’ve read in a while…
A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
(2011, Regency Historical) 1/16/2012
Grade: 4.5
After the sudden death of her husband, Martha Russell has one chance to save the estate from his cruel brother (and herself from a life as a dependent) – to conceive a child. She makes an arrangement with a neighbor for him to have sex with her every day for the next month, but she is determined it will have nothing to do with desire – or love. But as she gets to know Theo Mirkwood, her task becomes more difficult…
This book started out wonderfully. If I hadn’t read the reviews, I might have expected this to be yet another one of those books about a widow wanting “experience”, but the approach was quite different here. There’s a real depth to the characters, as the heroine learns to respect the hero and the hero finds a purpose in his life beyond pleasure. The first two thirds of the book were just superb. Unfortunately, the book fell down a bit in the last third. The focus shifted to the plot, and making sure all of the different threads were wrapped up. There were fewer interactions between the hero and heroine. The final section was almost confusing, it was so stuffed with plot points. It left the book with a slightly less-than-perfect impression, although it was still very enjoyable and worth reading.
Karen Wheless
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