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The Devil In Disguise (2011)

by Stefanie Sloane(Favorite Author)

3.39 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0345517393 (ISBN13: 9780345517395)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Ballantine Books

series

Regency Rogues

review 1: The majority of the book is good, but I found the ending terribly disappointing*NOTE: I received a free review copy of this book.*Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS. Rating: 6/10PROS: - There’s a fair amount of intrigue along with the romance, and I wasn’t able to predict much of the storyline, which was a welcome change for me.- Sloane does a good job of conveying Will’s and Lucinda’s disgust with societal customs without making either one seem overly cynical or unapproachable.- There are quite a few little amusing moments. One of my favorites early on occurs when Will arrives at a party and the crowd parts before him, at which point he mutters, “I am apparently Moses.”- Both Lucinda and Will have servants and friends/family ... morewho I liked very much. I enjoyed the scenes when the two are apart almost as much as the scenes in which Lucinda and Will are together.CONS:- The ending (by that, I mean the final 30 pages or so) fell terribly flat for me. The final confrontation with the villain is anti-climactic, there are several plot points wrapped up too neatly in a brief “here’s what happened on this and this and this account” epilogue, and the romance wraps up too quickly with very little expansion upon the long-awaited emotional confession of one of the characters.- There are a lot of little mentions of Lucinda’s and Will’s desire for each other, but there’s not much payoff throughout the book. It contains two intimate scenes, neither of which had much of an effect on me, and I was very disappointed not to see them make love again at the end of the story, when they’re happily together for good.Overall comments: I liked this well enough right up until the conclusion, which gave me the impression that the author was in a hurry to wrap things up. In fact, I was so disappointed in the various things that felt unfinished to me that I doubt I’ll ever read the story again.
review 2: I happened to get wind of the RITA finalists and winners recently, which prompted me to pick up this book by Stefanie Sloane. This book was a finalist in the RITA “Best First Book” category. I’m new to her work, but apparently she’s written a few historicals. I’m always on the lookout for new authors, so I thought I’d give her a go.In this story, the first of the Regency Rogues novels, we meet Lord William “Iron Will” Randall, the Duke of Clairemont. He’s a spy with the Corinthians, who has been assigned the role of suitor for the lovely Lady Lucinda Grey. Like Will, Lucinda has been on the market for a while, but also by choice. No one seems to be able to hold her interest or spark any sort of fire within her. That is, until she meet Will. Will doesn’t want to like Lucinda, but boy does he. He ends up making a mutually beneficial arrangement with Lucinda in order to “court” her while he fulfills his mission by offering up his favorite horse. Turns out, Lucinda and her three aunts (The “Furies”) are into breeding racehorses, so she’s pretty stoked about the idea.The story was fun, but it didn’t always keep me interested. As a first novel, I’m definitely not going to pass judgment on this author until I’ve read a few more books, and it looks like she’s written a few more novels that might be interesting to check out. I may not have been in the mood to read a regency novel. This book had great action sequences and enough drama to keep anyone interested. Perhaps I may have needed more comic relief. As an aside (and this is totally NOT the author’s fault or problem), I found myself a little preoccupied with the number of typos this book had. I know that publishers want to get books out ASAP, but this seemed excessive. Also, the cover models had weird hair. Again, these are nit-picky things that the author has no control over, but nonetheless took away from some of my enjoyment/interest in the book. The story, by and large, was good and this is definitely an author I’d check out again in the future. I highly recommend checking out RITA finalists, in general, because you can almost always find a gem. less

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