3 of 5 stars
Phineas Duncombe, ninth Duke of Mayne, never
wanted to be duke. After all, he had four older brothers. When his last brother
dies in an apparent accident and he’s thrust into the dukedom, Phin wants to
talk to all the people who shared his brother’s last night, including the
“Wanton Widow” Annabel, Countess of Longstowe. What he finds, however, is a
beautiful and lovely woman, hardly wanton. After a botched first meeting where
Phin is less than courteous to Annabel, she asks for his help in locating her
daughter who her cruel dead husband had sent away years before. Knowing how
discourteous he was earlier, Phin agrees to help her and finds the longer he’s
in her company, the more he desires her, but Annabel has sworn off men after
suffering years of abuse from her deceased husband.
Usually, I love Ms Galen’s books, but this one
just didn’t resonate with me. While I have no problem with an older
woman/younger man scenario, the 15-year age difference between Phin and Annabel
was a stretch for me. If Annabel had been in her late thirties, I would have
bought into their romance. With way too many sex scenes between these two, I
found myself skipping most of them. What I did love was Reynolds and Meg. Their
scenes together were wonderful and touching. There was a mystery running
throughout the book about the way Phin’s brothers had all died and that kept me
reading to the end.
I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy and
all opinions are my own.
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