My Lady's Dare (Harlequin Historical) [Paperback]

Dare doesn't know what to do with his jaded innocent. The mask of ennui she wears as easily as her risque gowns occasionally slips and lets him see that there is more -- so much more beneath the surface. And though he's not sure why, Dare wants to discover just what Elizabeth is hiding. But more than that, Dare wants to do the one thing that society will never permit -- he wants to marry her. And marrying Dare is the one thing that Elizabeth's love can never allow.

Gayle Wilson has written a masterful regency without the expected virgin bride. Instead she's written a well-layered, multi-dimensional hero and heroine in this powerful story of intrigue and betrayal . . . and love.

I have read all of Gayle Wilson's novels, and this is the best one yet. Be warned though. Have a tissue at hand for the last third of this story. The only way Gayle Wilson could have improved this story was to make it longer. If you like regency historicals with powerful emotion and a strong sense of place, read My Lady's Dare.

Elizabeth Carstairs, however, isn't clamoring for the Earl's attentions. She protects herself from the harsh realities of life by wearing a carefully constructed mask of indifference and secrecy. Once Val learns Elizabeth's secrets, can he ever see her as anything more than a Frenchman's mistress?

Although this is the first book in the Sinclair brides trilogy (the other two are Anne's Perfect Husband and Her Dearest Sin, both by Gayle Wilson), I read this book last, and I wasn't sure I would like it. In the other two books, Val and Elizabeth appear as secondary characters, but he always seems to be a bit snobby, and I thought that I most likely would not like him as the main hero. Wrong!

It took me a while to get into this book, but after the first 50 pages went by, I was hooked! I loved the character of Elizabeth, she was a wonderful, noble soul who still retained her elegance and poise even after the horrible life she had been forced into. Val was dashing and actually sensitive and romantic (even though he was a real jerk in a few scenes), which surprised me to no end, but in a pleasantly shocking way! The ending was quite heart-warming, and I was left with that "awwwww" that ends every good romance novel :)

I gave the book four stars because it took a while to get me involved in the story, and also because the double standard of the era is smacked in the reader's face quite a lot, which irked me. I know that the double standard existed then, and to some extent still exists today, but I was angry that because Val had slept with a lot of women, he was a handsome rake (at the beginning of the book, for example, he was keeping a mistress in his other London home!), whereas when Elizabeth had slept with a lot of men, she was called a whore and treated as if she were trash. That burned me. Altogether, though, the book is quite good!

The book also introduces the character of Ian Sinclair, who is the hero in Anne's Perfect Husband. Ian is one of my favorite romantic heroes ever, so I really enjoyed having him in the book. So if you are looking for a good regency book, or even a good regency series (I can't get over how good Anne's Perfect Husband is!), pick up this book!