Lord Dragoner's Wife

Rating:
Summary: An engrossing read ; great characters; believable plot.
Review: Another wonderful book by award-winning author Lynn Kerstan, Lord Dragoner's Wife combines engaging characters with an intriguing and believable plot to produce a Regency romance that is far beyond the average. This is a novel to save for a rainy week-end afternoon when you can read until you've finished because you won't want to put it down. Young Captain Charles Everett, for reasons that are revealed slowly in the story, enters into a marriage of convenience with Delilah Bening, daughter of a wealthy merchant, only to abandon her after only one night together. Assuming that his new bride has no more interest in this arranged marriage than does he, Charles deserts her to fight against Napoleon. Six years later he returns as Lord Dragoner to dissolve the marriage. What he does not realize is that Delilah married him for love and will do everything she can to preserve thier union. In this novel, Kerstan excels at character development. At first introduction, the reader sees Charles as a rather callous reporbate only to find, as the pieces of the puzzle come together, that he is quite the opposite. As Delilah discovers the reasons for his character flaws and his seemingly heartless behavior, he becomes only more attractive. Although Delilah is definitely a managing female, she never becomes either strident or domineering but always retains her softness and compassion. This book should put Lynn Kerstan into the running for yet another coveted Rita award from Romance Writers of America.

Rating:
Summary: This plot won't fadge
Review: It might have, had Ms. Kerstan paid a little attention to motivation. The set up is actually compelling. Forced into an arranged marriage, the hero is so resentful that he joins the army the morning after. Six years later he returns to find that the bride with whom he has never even spoken except to say "I, Charles, take thee, Deliah...." is well-spoken, attractive, and very intelligent. She is also something of a whiz at business who has restored both his estate and his fortune, of which he was not aware since he never read her letters. Upon learning all of this he redoubles his resolution to have nothing to do with her. The reader spends the rest of the book searching for some motive for his inexplicable and absurd refusal even to become acquainted with her. Ms. Kerstan goes in for the inexplicable and absurd. The heroine, for example is attractive, intelligent, and sincere. She is not, however, accustomed to moving in society and her manner of conversing, while intelligent, is open and direct. She goes to Paris and is transformed overnight into a great beauty who answers her sharp-tongued husband with witty and satirical repartee. I don't think so.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read pageturner
Review: Lynn Kerstan just keeps getting better and better. Dragoner is a compelling hero and Delilah (love that name)is terrific--forthright and sensible, yet with an inner, tender yearning that makes her vulnerable. The plot is fresh and intriguing and the dialog is superb. Keepr 'em coming, Lynn! I can't wait for your next one.

Rating:
Summary: Another charming Regency!
Review: Lynn Kerstan's done it again-- another great Regency. This is darker than her last few books, or at least has a darker hero, but still offers her trademark wit and deft characterization. This is a book that will please both the Regency traditionalist and those who like the greater adventure and action of Regency historicals, as there is a backdrop of balls but also of war and intrigue.

Rating:
Summary: Good characters, slow plot and unrealistic ending
Review: Obviously, I am in a minority here, so feel free to completely disregard this review and stick to the other reviews here. However, I thought I should say that I didn't really care for this book.

I must concede that the characters were dynamic and very well depicted. I found this more so for Delilah than Dragoner. In fact, the opening impression of him is that he is a real sleazeball, and that image is hard to shake throughout the book, no matter what he does. If he really is merely misunderstood, why does his jerkish behavior come off so convincing to everyone?

I thought that the plot was very slow and plodding. The main characters dwell for interminable amounts of time on the mess they have made of their marriage. When the action picks up 2/3rds through the book, it seems unreal. I won't give the ending away because that would ruin it for you, but I read the whole end with complete disbelief at the sheer implausibility. At least the beginning, though slow, is realistic and often insightful.

Overall, this book has great characterizations, but a slow, plodding plot and, in the end, an unrealistice ending.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguingly different
Review: What should a well-educated, but not *good ton*, young woman do when the aristocratic but penniless husband her father bought for her turns up to his wedding drunk, fumblingly consummates the marriage and then disappears, running off to join in the Pensinular war? Well, if you're Delilah Bening, now Viscountess Dragoner, you set about repairing your husband's fortunes by using your business acumen and your father's contacts to do so. You write to your husband and let him know what you're doing, and if he doesn't reply, well, you simply assume that he doesn't object.

And what if he turns up after six years, still handsome, still unattainable, and informs you that he wants a divorce and nothing further to do with you? Well, if you're in love with him, as Delilah always has been, you first of all show him the impossibility of a divorce under English law (and well done, Kerstan, for getting that right! I'm fed up with writers in this period who assume that it's easy!), and then you try to show him that despite the past he'd be welcome in your life.

Finding himself almost killed with kindness on his attempt to rid his wife of himself, Dragoner flees back to France, where his reputation has sunk so low that it cannot be retrieved, it seems. After all, he got captured during the war and, apparently, switched sides and has been working with the French. And this is one of several reasons why he thinks that Delilah would be better off without him. He's got the reputation of being a traitor, and once that news filters back to England no-one will want to be associated with anyone connected to him.

Of course, he isn't a traitor, as we find out very early in the book, but he's not in a position to tell anyone the truth. But Dragoner has other reasons for believing himself unworthy of Delilah, as he keeps telling her he is. His family background and his actions during the war (unfaithful to her many times) are also part of it. So he keeps her at a distance, especially when she follows him to France and tries to become the kind of woman she thinks he might want. He fends her off with sarcasm and Shakespearean quotations, and when that doesn't work, he tells her bluntly that he is a traitor.

How Delilah and Dragoner move from this state of estrangement to repair their marriage is told amidst a background of the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, danger and espionage. It's very well done; Kerstan's careful research is evident. What stops this book getting five stars from me, though, is that I'd have liked a little more 'tell' as well as 'show'. While it became clear by his reactions to her that Dragoner was beginning to fall in love with his wife, I would have liked to see more of his thought processes, especially in the second half of the book.

But I certainly enjoyed Lord Dragoner's Wife enough to take a look at other titles by Kerstan.