LADY DERRING TAKES A LOVER is Julie Anne Long's next foray
into historical romance. Book 1 in the Palace
of Rogues series, LADY DERRING bring Long's
signature touch, with scintillating banter and deeply
emotional insights. Long's books always bring me to tears
and make me cheer in enthusiasm, alternately. Her heroines
are feminists without being militantly anachronistic. Her
heroes do a great job of realizing that love trumps all
obstacles and requires emotional growth. The secondary
characters are well developed and flesh out the cast of
characters admirably. There is not a single thing I didn't
love about this book!
Lady Derring is newly widowed. Her reprobate husband was
drowning in unsuspected debt, and Delilah, Lady Derring,
finds she has inherited only a decrepit building in the
warehouse district by the Thames from which she must wrest
her financial support. Delilah goes into business with her
departed spouse's newly discovered mistress (as one does),
and the two ladies open a boarding house in the property.
They dub it The Grand Palace on the Thames. They have the
vision of creating a found family with their boarders, and
the execution and results are simply delightful.
Battled-hardened Tristan Hardy tracks a smuggler to The
Grand Palace, and must discover if Lady Derring is part of
the crew that has killed families to protect the smuggling
ring. I adore Tristan! Laconic and upstanding, he slowly
comes under the spell of the upstanding Lady Derring.
Despite their best intentions, their hearts and bodies
slowly and deliciously become intertwined. Their banter is
invigorating. Tristan's insights into the strictures
society places on women are deftly provided and ring true
for now just as much as for his time period. I do love a man
who realizes a woman's worth. And Delilah and Tristan's
sexual chemistry practically lights the pages on fire. This
couple is achingly poignant, and I devoured this book to see
how their romance would progress.
Fans of smartly written historical romance rejoice! Long's
LADY DERRING TAKES A LOVER provides a witty yet dreamy
couple who will make you sigh in happiness.
A mistress. A mountain of debt. A mysterious
wreck of a building.
Delilah Swanpoole, Countess of Derring, learns the hard way
that her husband, “Dear Dull Derring,” is a lot more
interesting—and perfidious—dead than alive. It’s a devil of
an inheritance, but in the grand ruins of the one building
Derring left her, are the seeds of her liberation. And she
vows never again to place herself at the mercy of a
man.
But battle-hardened Captain Tristan Hardy is nothing if not
merciless. When the charismatic naval hero tracks a
notorious smuggler to a London boarding house known as the
Rogue’s Palace, seducing the beautiful, blue-blooded
proprietress to get his man seems like a small sacrifice.
They both believe love is a myth. But a desire beyond reason
threatens to destroy the armor around their hearts. Now a
shattering decision looms: Will Tristan betray his own code
of honor…or choose a love that might be the truest thing
he’s ever known?
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