Never Surrender to a Scoundrel

One Scandalous Season #3

By Lily Dalton

ISBN# 9781455523993

Author’s Website:  http://www.lilydalton.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Una

Description:

A Reckless Desire . . .

Lady Clarissa Bevington is in trouble. A reckless indiscretion has left her with two choices: ruin her family with the scandal of the Season, or marry Mr. Kincraig, the notorious scoundrel mistaken as her lover. Desperate and disgraced, Clarissa vows to love and cherish a veritable stranger, a man whose eyes smolder with danger-and undeniable desire . . .

An Unexpected Arrangement

As an agent for the Crown, Lord Donovan Blackmer has spent the last two years guarding Clarissa’s grandfather from an unknown assassin while disguised as the rakehell Kincraig. His mission may now be over, but his duty has just begun. Salvaging his beautiful, impetuous wife’s virtue will cost him his fortune and his position as an officer-but it might save him from the ghosts that haunt his own past. When their marriage “in name only” leads to exquisite seduction, Donovan must risk the only thing he has left to lose . . . his heart.

 Review:

This is historical romance at its best with just enough intrigue, romance and excitement to keep the reader turning pages.

Clarissa, a young debutante becomes pregnant by a dashing young man who she feels will rescue and marry her. She finds out at her coming out ball that in fact he has married someone else. Faced with a ruinous scandal she obeys her grandfather and marries Kincraig the man everyone thinks is the cause of her problems. What she finds out on her wedding day is that she doesn’t know the man she married either past or present however she decides at that time she will make the best of a bad situation. She knows that the marriage has cost him his career and she knows she is ultimately responsible for this. I like the way the author developed Clarissa from a scatterbrained debutante to a person who knows what she wants and is able to heal and mend the family she is thrown into. It must have been terrifying for this young girl to leave her family and have no idea what or where she was being taken to. She helps Blackmer repair the damage to his family situation and shows him her worth both as a wife and a lover. What she attains is a husband who is loyal and protective and who in the end becomes a real family man.

Blackmer is resentful of the fact that he is forced into a marriage he definitely did not want. Married before he knows only too well what it can cost him. Again he is forced into losing the job he loves. When he returns home he is estranged from his brother and very distant to his parents. All he wants to do is get his father to give him the house and piece of land he wants.

Although beautiful, his wife tugs at something inside him and he knows he must protect her and love her at all costs. When strange things start to happen he knows that his wife and her family are in danger. Blackmer finds out that his first marriage was not what it seemed. Complex, Blackmer’s ghosts keep the story moving and exciting. I found myself getting right into the story and its characters at every page.

I would love to read more books by Lucy Dalton. She definitely knows the time period and knows how to balance the characters out to make them likeable and readable. A light afternoon read on a cold winter’s day. What could be better?

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*