I realize I will run the risk of sounding pathetic here, but I'm sayin' it anyway. I've been waiting all summer for this book to come out (as with the last one, Wicked Intentions). Loretta Chase is one of my favorite authors, and this one is a new addition to the Carsington brothers series, which I love love love. The third of the Carsington books, Lord Perfect, is about Benedict, the oldest Carsington brother, who is everything a straight-laced, upstanding aristocrat should be until he runs into Bathsheba Wingate, who stands his perfectly ordered world on its head. Bathsheba's daughter, Olivia, runs away with Benedict's ward Peregrine, two of the most beguilingly precocious children ever to grace the pages of a romance novel. In the end, Benedict and Bathsheba rescue the kids, fall in love, and figure out how they can stay together. It's a great story, one of my all-time favorite romance novels.
So this one is set about a dozen years later and it's about those two precocious children, Olivia and Peregrine (Lord Lisle). Imagine my excitement. (I live in a small town. Cut me some slack here.) We were on vacation the week it came out, so I bought it shortly after our return, but then couldn't bring myself to read it. Like when the third Lord of the Rings movie came out, and I put off going to see it for a couple of weeks after it opened because once I saw it, then it would be over. I'd never be able to look forward to it again. (I told you. Pathetic. I don't know why you're still reading.)
But my son is off at camp, making this week a bit of a vacation for me, so I decided to pick it up. And it's good. It's better than 90% of what's out there. But probably because my expectations were so high, I was a little disappointed. I really, really wanted to see them in Egypt (a dream of both of theirs), and although they're headed that direction at the end, they never get there during the story. So that was part of it. But also the dynamic between the two of them felt almost exactly the same as Lord Perfect, with a strong dose of Your Scandalous Ways (the last book of Chase's that I read) thrown in for good measure. It seemed like a re-tread, honestly.
The story. Peregrine, who is now 24-ish and known as Lisle (as in Lord Lisle), returns to London from Egypt where he has been with one of the Carsington brothers (Rupert, from Mr. Impossible, my favorite Chase). Although he is not a Carsington, Lisle has been mostly raised by them because his parents are a living soap opera and drive him nuts. When they see him back in London, his parents decide that it is high time for him to start doing his duty as their son, and inform him that unless he goes to Scotland to take care of his ancestral home, they are going to cut off his financial support. Lisle doesn't want to give in to his parents' manipulations, so he is planning to refuse to go to Scotland. In the meantime, he runs into Olivia, with whom he has corresponded but whom he hasn't seen in years. She has blossomed into a great beauty and he nearly chokes on his tongue. Olivia decides that Scotland would be good for Lisle, and it would be good for her as well, since she is bored out of her mind by the London social scene and looking for an adventure. So off she goes to Scotland practically in the middle of the night, knowing that Lisle will have little choice but to come after her. So they fall in love and set everything right at the old family estate and solve the mystery and figure out how they can be married and everything is dandy.
Except it felt like a re-tread. Olivia's personality felt almost exactly the same as Francesca's from Your Scandalous Ways. So. I'm only complaining based on my high expectations. It still gets four stars out of five, and if you've never read Chase, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad place to start-- although the nuances of the family relationships between all the Carsingtons might not make much sense.
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