Dashing and Dangerous: More Rakes and Rogues

Rating:
Summary: 4 Out of 5 'Ain't' Bad! ** Overall Grade: B+ **
Review: The importance of buying an anthology is the hope of discovering a new author. In DASHING AND DANGEROUS, Melinda McRae is my discovery . . .

Mary Balogh: "Precious Rogue." -- Rating: B+
Happy endings? Consistently - after all, this is romance. Still, Mary Balogh always seems to write a better than average happily-ever-after. In PRECIOUS ROGUE, the unjust get their dues and the reader rejoices. Patricia Mangan is her aunt's overworked companion, a pathetic creature existing in life's shadows. Josh Bancroft is a notorious London rake and libertine; he is also her spoiled cousin's beau. Unbeknown to Josh Bancroft, he is also a kind and good man. Compassionately, he observes Miss Mangan's daily existence. In the end, Mr. Bancroft becomes Patricia's much-needed champion. At first, Mary Balogh portrays this hero as a cool rogue, but with her last word, Balogh has placed him firmly in her reader's heart.

Edith Layton: "Buried Treasure." -- Rating: C-
Long Island 1699, in the cloak of night, Captain Kidd and his motley crew bury a stolen treasure. A fight ensues and a comrade viciously stabs the story's intended hero -- Dancer. Now considered dead, the pirates unceremoniously bury Dancer with the stolen riches! Oh, but wait, this severely wounded marauder manages to dig himself out of his sand grave! Good Samaritan Jedidiah Jenkins discovers him and drags him home. Jenkins then permits his innocent daughter, Hannah, to be this sea wolf's nurse! Cry foul to Edith Layton and skip this entry! BURIED TREASURE is too abrasive.

Melinda McRae: "Sweet Revenge." -- Rating: A+
Oh, this was a terrific short story. A story filled with lust, revenge, and hidden love. David North and Chloe Ridgefield were childhood sweethearts. When the war department reported David missing and presumed dead, Chloe quickly wed Jonathan Ridgefield. David, however, was still very much alive. Fifteen long years have slipped away, Chloe is now a widow, and David will make sure she pays for her hurtful maneuver. Melinda McRae pens a winner with this little tale of SWEET REVENGE.

Anita Mills: "A Good Woman." -- Rating: A-
Now this is the Anita Mills I love to read. Jack O'Neal has served eight years, in a Texas Petitionary, for armed robbery. He is out and headed to San Angelo. O'Neal shares the stagecoach with the widow, Beth Morgan, and her two small children. A hard, bitter Jack O'Neal may have gotten on the stage in Huntsville, but a kindhearted Jack O'Neal will get off in San Angelo. Kindhearted enough to want to help the destitute Morgan family. When Anita Mills is on the mark, she is razor-sharp and here the author is dead on. A GOOD WOMAN is a well written, sensitive story displaying Anita Mills' enormous ability to write a solid western.

Mary Jo Putney: "The Devil's Spawn." -- Rating: B+
This was a fun little story. Dominick Chandler and Roxanne Mayfield are young and very much in love. Roxanne's father is selfish and outraged. He plots to separate the young couple and succeeds. Ten years fall away, Dominick is now a viscount, wealthy and has his own plans. Now, this is the fun section! Dominick returns to England, under the cover of a Polynesian native. Why? Chandler hopes to lure Roxanne's scholarly father into his devil's lacework, to steal Roxanne for himself. THE DEVIL'S SPAWN was a writer at play and the reader enjoys her game. The story's weakness? Putney rushed the ending and her delightful story grew dopey!

The anthology's overall reading merit? Balogh, Mills, and Putney are three of the best authors in romance writing and here they didn't let me down. McRae is an author I will be checking out . . . so four out of five ain't bad. A good purchase.

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

Rating:
Summary: As anthologies go, okay. Three good novellas, two poor.
Review: This anthology has three of my favourite Regency writers as contributors, so it should be good, I thought. However, I quickly discovered that two of the novellas inside had also appeared in a later anthology, Captured Hearts. So if you've read that, then you've already read the Layton and Balogh contributions to this anthology.

And, as it happens, by far the weakest and least enjoyable story in this is the Layton one, Buried Treasure. Layton departs from her usual Regency genre (why then is she included in a *Rakes* and Rogues anthology?) to produce a rather tedious story about a not-very-likeable pirate and the somewhat boring woman who falls in love with him and whom he intends to seduce and desert. I didn't enjoy this the first time, and didn't bother reading it the second.

I enjoyed Melinda McRae's Sweet Revenge more than I expected. David, Lord Denby returns home after a long absence, knowing that his childhood sweetheart, Chloe, is now widowed. He and Chloe had been secretly engaged years earlier, but then he'd gone off to fight in the Napoleonic wars and had been rumoured killed in action. Griefstricken, Chloe had married his cousin Jonathan. Not long after, David had returned home safely, and he'd seen Chloe's action as betrayal. He hadn't seen her since. Now, however, she was widowed and he's out for revenge. He will make her fall in love with him again and, if possible, seduce her - and then desert her. But will his resolve hold when his own feelings may not be as full of hate as he thinks?

Mary Jo Putney's The Devil's Spawn is not her best work by far. The plot's a well-worn one: Dominic, Lord Chandler, asks his sweetheart's father for permission to pay his addresses. The father rejects him and goes further: lets Roxanne believe that Dominic has been bought off. This same plot was used in a novella in the Captured Hearts anthology. Years later, Dominic returns, with an elaborate plan to kidnap Roxanne and marry her - he has no idea of what she believes about him. It's the really ridiculous nature of this plan, which involves pretending to be a Polynesian savage, which destroys the crediblity of the story. Added to that, there is another cliched revelation in the novella, and an abrupt and unconvincing change in characterisation.

Anita Mills' A Good Woman, set in Texas as opposed to Regency England, is also surprisingly enjoyable. Jack Morgan, former bank robber, is being released after eight years in prison. His only wish is to find the money he buried before being arrested, but a woman with two children and clearly in desperate circumstances catches his attention and he helps her out by paying for a night's accommodation and food for her. The next day they're on the same stagecoach to Huntsville. Beth tries to ignore the drunken, untidy man, while Jack is tired and irritated by the children. However, neither can prevent their decent natures wanting to help the other, and when they arrive in Huntsville Jack sacrifices the remainder of his cash to stop Beth's home being repossessed. Then, when Beth sees the way the sheriff is harassing Jack, she offers him a home. Can the lonely, tired widow reform the cynical ex-con who claims not to have a heart?

And the best in the collection is Mary Balogh's Precious Rogue, which I'd read before. Patricia Mangan is a poor relation, treated as little better than a maid by her aunt. Joshua Buchanan is a guest at a house-party, and the favoured suitor of Patricia's cousin. However, Buchanan - as Patricia discovers when she sees him enjoying the attentions of a married lady guest - is a rake, and he's actually only leading her cousin and aunt on. He has no intention of proposing. However, the rake and the little shadow find themselves having sparky conversations... and the rake finds himself increasingly concerned for the fate of his little bird, as he calls Patricia. And soon he cannot even carry on his usual games with discreet women, because all he can think about is Patricia...

The best novellas in this anthology, as is always the case with anthologies, needed to be longer. The other two would have been best omitted. This gets three stars for Precious Rogue; on average, the rest of the anthology merits two.