Well-written, interesting story about love, betrayal and revenge. The heroine, Clemency Fry, has grown up opposed to the idea of marriage due to the inequity accorded married women under the law during the 1800s when a married women was considered her husband’s property. Despite this serious and longheld concern about entering into matriomony, Clemency has fallen in love and agreed to marry a baron, Lord Boyal. When Clemency Fry learns that her fiancée is not who she thinks he is, she joins forces with Audric Ferrard, who is plotting revenge after Boyal seduced his younger sister.

Despite having a large cast of characters who face a number of challenges, the story is easy to follow. A few points could have used some further clarification/exposition. For example, it was never clearly explained how Lord Boyal managed to win Clemency’s heart when she was so strongly opposed to marriage. In the first significant scene between the two of the them, he is treating her coldly and won’t even look at her, causing Clemency to wonder if the engagement should be ended. Except for her older sister, her family seems oblivious to the Lord Boyal’s mistreatment, which eventually also includes verbal abuse. Similarly, since Lord Boyal’s interest in Clemency turned out to be financial, it was unclear why he didn’t marry Audric’s sister once he seduced her. Audric was wealthy and would have presumably ensured that his sister’s marriage settlements were generous.

Clarity about motivations such as these would have further enhanced the story. Also while clever, I found the footnotes from the dead author of Clemency’s favorite treatise on woman’s rights to be distracting and unnecessary.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed spending time with these characters as they worked their way to the final scene, and look forward to seeing future works from this author.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #RandomHouse #BallantineBooks for an advance copy to review.

In this historical novel, Clemency is a young woman who has read the works of Miss Taylor, a feminist writer along the lines of Wollstonecraft. Clemency has taken to heart Taylor’s words about marriage being a trap for women. And yet, Lord Boyle has broken through her defenses and has gotten her to agree to marriage. Almost instantaneously he becomes cold and uninterested in her. She is puzzled but in despair: she cannot break the engagement to the well-to-do Lord Boyle because of the negative financial effects it will have on her family. Fortuitously, into the picture walks Audric in a quiet rage and hunting Lord Boyle It takes little to get Clemency to join in his revenge. He starts out small, revealing just some of Boyle’s sins yet it takes little to open her eyes and to join him in his vengeful plot. Audric at first plans to use her as a pawn in his project but as they both investigate they begin to develop feelings for one another. With her and her family’s safety on the line will Clemency be able help bring Boyle to justice and to become Audric’s real and romantic partner not pawn?

This is a lovely and mildly suspenseful novel. In a quirky twist, we learn that the omniscient narrator is the ghost of the anti-marriage, proto-feminist ghost, Miss Taylor. She speaks through end notes that are engaging and charming asides to the reader. Happily, they are sparse enough not to be annoying yet frequent enough to keep things going.

The only weakness for me was that Clemency and Audric fell in love - from strangers and adversaries to completely in love - rather abruptly without the literary support that is found throughout the rest of the book. Once they do, however, the progression of their romance is credible and real, totally supported by the actions and thoughts of each other.

There are so many layers to this book: pathos, anguish, love, amusement and revenge are all mixed together to form a beautiful cohesive and very entertaining novel. I’m sure this will be a lasting favorite. I look forward to promoting it to my patrons.