Silly Title, Good Story
I wanted to try a historical romance novel and picked this one because it got starred reviews from Library Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and RT Book Reviews. I was not disappointed. There was an interesting plot, some suspense, and a lot of witty banter and teasing between the aristocratic woman and the lawyer (a duke’s heir by the novel’s end) that made me laugh out loud more than once. It includes authentic descriptions of the ladies’ dress of the day and of restrictive roles placed on both women and men based on their place in society. The intimate scenes came later in the novel and were not too overbearing. The title is silly and does not do justice to the novel’s high quality of writing. It’s also silly because the lawyer/duke in this story had nowhere expressed preference for blonde women since he considered all women insipid and prone to hysterics or fainting. It was Lady Clara’s intelligence, wit, and bravery that grab his attention. Besides changing the novel’s title, the only other thing I would change is the punishment given to the main criminal in the story, which was pretty gruesome and seemingly could have been avoided.