Genre: Historical Romance
Setting: 18th Century France
POV: 3rd Person
Sensuality: Hot
Violence: Oh, yes! After all, this is an Anne Stuart book.
Format: Digital
Source: A digital ARC courtesy of Harlequin via NetGalley
My Grade: B
Ruthless is the first book in Anne Stuart’s upcoming House of Rohan trilogy. It’s been a while since she wrote an historical romance and I’ve missed them. This is typical Anne Stuart fare: very dark and violent with a definite Gothic flavour.
Elinor Harriman lives in exile in France with her disgraced aristocratic mother and her beautiful younger sister, Lydia. When Lady Caroline left her husband for a dashing Frenchman, she and her daughters began a life of upheaval and insecurity. The intervening years have seen Lady Caroline embark on a series of disastrous affairs and reckless gambling, leaving her daughters to fend for themselves and the household. At the beginning of the story, she’s in the final stages of syphilis and has descended into madness.
As the elder sister, Elinor feels responsible for her mother and sister’s welfare. When Lady Caroline takes the last of their money and absconds, Elinor is obliged to follow her. Her destination: a debauched house party hosted by the notorious Viscount Rohan. Rohan and his cronies are known for their depravities. His is not an address visited by innocent young ladies. But as Elinor is neither young nor innocent, she is only mildly intimidated by Rohan’s reputation. She’s desperate to stop her mother from gambling away what remains of their meagre funds, and this desperation outweighs any trepidation she might feel.
Viscount Rohan is intrigued by Elinor. She’s neither beautiful nor charming, yet she stirs his interest. He helps her find her mother and transport her back to Paris. Afterwards, he finds himself strangely reluctant to end their acquaintance. A series of unfortunate circumstances lead Rohan to offer Elinor an indecent proposal, and they soon find themselves caught up in a mystery involving murder, false identities and greed.
The premise of Ruthless is not particularly original but Anne Stuart gives it a fresh twist. Naturally, Viscount Rohan is not nearly as wicked as he would like people to believe, and he has a mysterious past. Elinor is a strong heroine who takes no nonsense. She’s familiar with hardship and betrayal and isn’t particularly shocked by Rohan. Elinor has no illusions about his character, yet she’s prepared to trade her favours for her sister’s protection.
There’s a lot to like in this book: the unusual setting; a nice secondary romance involving Elinor’s sister, Lydia, and one of Rohan’s friends; the foreboding atmosphere at which Anne Stuart so excels; and a fast-paced story which never lags. The weak point for me is a subplot involving an over-the-top villain. The conclusion to this subplot was predictable and I felt it added little to the overall story.
I enjoyed Ruthless and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the trilogy. Ruthless, Reckless and Breathless will be released back-to-back from August to October 2010.
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You lost me at “Rohan”. Horses, spears, plains, Nazgûl, rings…
@Christian: Oh, LOL! This book is a little different from The Lord of the Rings. There are no elves, dwarves, trolls, etc., but a lot more sex.
You had me at Anne Stuart and “a debauched house party hosted by the notorious Viscount Rohan”.
I’ve request this title from Netgalley.
Oh, nice review, Sarah! I’m glad you liked it. I liked it even more than you, but I’m a huge Anne Stuart fangirl and I especially love her historicals with jaded, amoral heroes. This reminded me of some of her mid-1990s medievals and Georgians.
Do you have the next one in your TBR? And you know the prequel short story is free at eharlequin now, right?
You had me at “Anne Stuart” and “historical.” Ha!
Although historical roms have really not been doing it for me lately, so maybe I shouldn’t read it….
She can write such deliciously dark heroes. I love me some deliciously dark heroes so I’m really looking forward to this series too
This is the first review I’ve seen for this book and I’m so so glad you enjoyed it!
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