A new author in 2008, Meredith Duran now has six historical novels to her credit and each one is excellent. This one, like the rest, is impeccably researched and the plot well developed. I consider her the romance author for the intellectual so exacting is her wording (and I usually need a dictionary close at hand for the rarely used words).
AT YOUR PLEASURE brings to life the turmoil in England in 1715, as George I of Hanover reigns as King but the nobles are dissatisfied and the Jacobites want James Stuart (James III) as their monarch. Scotland is threatening war.
Adrian Ferrers, Earl of Rivenham, and Lady Leonora Colville were young lovers who stole one afternoon of passion together. Though they planned to marry, the treachery of her family tore them apart and wed her to another who with poison took Rivenham’s unborn child from her. Years later, Nora’s husband is dead and Adrian and Nora meet again, each believing betrayed by the other and now on opposite sides of the growing division between the supporters of Protestant King George and Catholic James Stuart. Adrian, a favorite of the king, has come to Nora’s home seeking to capture her brother, David, a traitor for his support for James Stuart. When Adrian learns what actually happened those many years ago, he decides to win Nora back.
I like Duran’s way of saying things (“Perhaps he was never himself but with her. Or rather, he was more than himself. He did not recognize this excess of emotion within him. Six years out of practice, he had yet to fathom a way to govern it.”) This novel did not earn the full 5 stars I gave her first, THE DUKE OF SHADOWS, because it consists primarily of the emotional interaction between the hero and heroine, and mostly takes place on the Colville estate, taken over by Adrian and his men as they lie in wait for Nora’s brother. In the midst of such circumstances, Adrian and Nora recapture something of their former relationship, but as passion draws them together, politics tears them apart. The dialog is superb; the ending a sweet one. So, I recommend it.
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