"Fun Regency romance"

In 1806 Helene and Rees Holland eloped in what seemed like a love match. However, something went wrong and a decade later they live apart with Helene wanting a divorce so that she can marry someone else. She has no suitor, but desperately wants a child like all her friends. She asks Rees one more time to free her and he refuses but offers her a stipulation that if she finds a man willing to stand by her side in court he will grant her wish.

An angry Helene decides scandal is her solution. She will find a lover to impregnate her. At a ball she dresses as Cinderella and meets her Prince Charming. However her regal lover turns out to be her toad of a husband. Rees has known all along that he still loves his wife, but though he is a composer he has never told her his feelings as he feels she hates him. Now that he has finally returned to her bed, he plans to re-win her heart as he has tasted nectar for the second time, but Helene is a stubborn foe who has had a decade of neglect.

Though the audience will wonder why the lead couple fails to communicate, Regency romance readers will take plenty of delight with this charming second chance at love tale. Helene is typical of sub-genre heroines while Rees is atypical as an artist whose works clutter everything and everywhere. He makes the tale fresh and worth reading as Helene has to decide whether she can live with his so- called wicked ways that include courtesans and Russian dance troupes, something she could not ten years ago.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted March 15, 2004

Summary

Helene, the Countess Godwin, knows there is nothing more unbearably tedious than a virtuous woman. After all, she's been one for ten long years while her scoundrel of a husband lives with strumpets and causes scandal after scandal. So she decides it's time for a change -- she styles her hair in the newest, daring mode, puts on a shockingly transparent gown, and goes to a ball like Cinderella, hoping to find a prince charming to sweep her off her feet...and into his bed. But instead of a prince, she finds only her own volatile, infuriatingly handsome...husband, Rees, the Earl Godwin. They'd eloped to Gretna Green in a fiery passion, but passion can sometimes burn too hot to last. But now, Rees makes her a brazen offer, and Helene decides to become his wife again...but not in name only. No, this time she decides to be very, very wicked indeed.