It was a lush Caribbean evening, yet there were nasty undercurrents.  He is a military spy on a mission gone bad with a suspected informer at work and now men hunting for his death.  His good comrade has just been murdered and he is left alone in Demerara with no escape.  She was a stunning Demeraran Island beauty, striving to escape the leers of the marriage hungry men lusting both for her and the wealth that would be hers.

They met under the phantasmagorical beauty of the stars and like a dream, they agree to be wed on that oneiric starlit night as an adventure, despite both being strangers.  By doing that, the lovely and artistic Cecilia (Cilia)Thomas saves the life of Viscount Gantry who soon spirits her off to England and away from the mercenary suitors lining up to gain her father’s wealth.  Once at his Mayfair home, however, Felton leaves her alone while he is off on long and unexplained missions for Lord Liverpool while she is left with a disapproving sister-in-law, two mean and unthinking young stepdaughters and a comforting father-in-law with lusty thoughts in his head.  What can she do?

A DUKE, THE SPY, AN ARTIST, AND A LIE is the third book in Vanessa Riley’s Rogues and Remarkable Women Series set in 19th century England.  Riley has a lovely talent for giving enough period detail that one is drawn into the story in an authentic way; yet it is not so overdone that it overwhelms the intriguing storyline coming from the thoughts and voice of this very unusual couple who let lies, miscommunication and other people get in the way of their torrid love for the other.

I found Cecilia to be a very likeable protagonist, but I admit, I considered some of her reactions to events to be strange and not in keeping with her background.  I also didn’t fall in love with the “hero” at the start of the novel as he seemed a bit too dim-witted and clueless to be a military spy.  Despite those initial quibbles with A DUKE, THE SPY, AN ARTIST, AND A LIE, I soon got into the story and definitely relished the second half of the book. I had to keep turning the digital pages as fast as possible as it was quite suspenseful, and I just had to find out how things transpired.

While I have read the first and now the third novel in this romantic series, I can attest that A DUKE, THE SPY, AN ARTIST, AND A LIE also works well as a stand-alone romance. Riley does make some reference to past events but gives enough details so the reader can still understand the implications of what transpired in this novel.  A key attraction for me in this unusual romance novel is the diversity of the backgrounds and how skillfully Riley highlights the relationship between some of the British nobility with the lifestyles and differing situations for slaves and their wealthy owners in Demerara (now Guyana & formerly British Guyana).

If you like historical fiction or are a fan of Riley’s previous novels, I am quite sure you will take great pleasure in slipping back in time to see how the spy and the artist find the means to untangle all the miscommunications, lies and mis-directions that had serve to keep this loving couple apart and break their hearts.   So, don’t wait – get your copy of Riley’s A DUKE, THE SPY, AN ARTIST, AND A LIE and find out why he is a Rogue, and she is such a Remarkable Woman!