Wow, there’s a lot packed into this novella!
I’ve been really caught up in the Rules for the Reckless series, so I bought this novella the other day. It starts off in a very intriguing fashion.
Miss Amanda Thomas is waiting for the Viscount Ripton at the church where they’re to be married. But he never shows. Worried something has happened to him, she rushes to the hotel where he’s staying (I believe they’re in Turkey-she’s a secretary for an older woman who is writing her memoirs). When she confronts the concierge, she notices another man arguing with him. In fact there’s a group of men who completely stop and stare as she mentions the viscount’s name.
Apparently her fiance is not the Viscount Ripton.
The man with the dark piercing stare, who won’t stop glaring at her, is the actual Viscount Ripton.
Spence is supposed to be hunting down one of his flighty relatives. A cousin named Charles, when he finds out someone is using his identification and pretending to be the Viscount, so as to use the Ripton money. Chasing both the thief and his cousin prove exhausting, until the little blonde angel in front of him mentions she’s looking for him.
But once she describes his cousin as the impostor viscount, Spence realizes she must have pulled a con to get the money. his poor silly cousin would never do something this crazy. So Spence takes the little con artist with him to the docks to look for his cousin. They find out he set sail for England that afternoon, so he books passage for both himself, and his thief. A thief who happens to have his cousin’s ring.
Amanda is no thief, but how to convince Spence? Obviously he is mistaken, and her fiance is not a liar. But if he isn’t a liar, why did he leave her at the altar?
During the course of their voyage, Spence begins to actually like Amanda, and finds out she was only marrying his cousin out of convenience and fondness. Not love.
But even as he’s falling in love with Amanda, he realizes he’s treated her abominably. But Amanda is falling in love with Spence, too, and after an amazing night, his cousin shows up at the door…and blows open the fact that Spence knew they were tracking his cousin, not just some random impersonator.
Amanda is heartbroken. And knows that she’s been an utter fool. The next couple days on the ship are awful studies of silence and sadness. And yet the ending is sweet, and wonderful and satisfying.
I highly recommend this series, and while you can absolutely read as stand-alones, each book has been soo good, you will want to read each one!
I can’t believe none of you have ever told me about this author before! Who else should I be reading that I haven’t yet?
