Judith’s review of My Dangerous Duke
The Inferno Club: In public, this scandalous society of London aristocrats is notorious for pursuing all manner of debauchery. But in private, they are warriors who would do anything to protect king and country . . .
They say that the very name of Warrington is cursed . . .
From a time as old as the cold stone of the duke’s ancestral castle, the Warrington men have been plagued by tragedy. But Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington, has vowed to escape the predestined torment by forsaking love and devoting his life to the Inferno Club and its secret mission.
And then she is brought to him unbidden by cutthroats hoping to calm the duke’s infamous temper—a sacrificial virgin of sorts. But even overpowered, Kate Madsen will be no man’s sacrifice. And the duke’s price for claiming her may be what he has sworn never to give—the heart he has so long and fiercely guarded—to the beautiful hostage he was never meant to love.
Here is a historical romance that is for the truly serious lover of the genre and who finds the complicated story and extensive cast of characters stimulating and educational in its own way. Such are the novels of Gaelen Foley and those who are in possession of such a hunger for novels that are meaty in their content and written with flair and vivre, this is their kind of book. This is what one reviewer called an ” . . . improbable spy story” complete with the undercover government agents disguised as a social club of debauched aristocrats on the one side, and a hidden group of people who for generations have been plotting and carrying out their grandiose plans for world domination. Yet the real story here that carries the action forward is the involvement of Rohan, Duke of Warrington, and Kate Madsen, an abductee who has been caught up in the mysterious hunt for treasure and information that surrounds the duke. Kept in captivity for five weeks, she is ultimately presented to Rohan as “a gift” and one he freely accepts believing that she is a whore given to him by his colleagues for his pleasure and as a way to insure his good moods. Known as “the Beast,” Rohan is known for his temper and for the rather bizaare ways in which he demonstrates his disfavor.
The Duke is one of the most powerful men in England and yet he has chosen to allow his family line to die, all due to his rather weird belief in a family curse. That he is an accomplished assassin enhances this belief and has now driven this man to choose never to marry. That he ultimately becomes attracted to Kate in something of an obsessed way is never in doubt but whether or not he is willing to own up to loving her is another matter altogether. And while Kate’s eventual love for Rohan opens her to possible hurt and rejection, she is a woman who knows her own mind and one who is willing to allow her considerable intellect to have a say in the way she fashions her future. Kate is indeed one of those very unusual women who has lived on her own for most of her life and who has come to believe that the lonely, sedentary life is what lay ahead for her. Rohan is drawn to her capacity for surviving experiences that would have reduced many a fine miss to hysterics and through her cool awreness of the situations in which she finds herself, is willing to allow Rohan liberties, but she is not sure if she is willing to allow him to shape her entire future.
This novel is really about the paralyzing power of fear to change one’s perspective to the degree that they opt out of living. It is also about the age-old battle between good and evil, an evil that has pervaded some families for generations and which is threatening to upend society as it was known in that day. It is also about the power of authentic love to overwhelm fear, to rejuvenate and to remake, to empower and to renew, even when disillusionment has taken all the vitality out of one’s life. Ms Foley writes complicated novels, and this book is no exception. A second book in the Inferno Club series, this novel continues the saga of those intrepid investigators that feel like they are always on the verge of a breakthrough. It is also about the power of that same love to bring light and understanding into minds, hearts, and circumstances that have slowly but surely come to a point where all the key figures dwell in darkness, literally and figuratively.
I found this novel to be compelling in its scope and extensively well-researched. The segments that dealt with the danger and all its attributes have slowly become dark spaces in Rohan’s life and his undercover activities as an assassin are at the point where they are threatening to push out any semblance of light in his mind. There were times when I felt the political and baldly historical passages almost overwhelmed the book and I have to admit that after awhile I felt inundated and had to lay the book down. Yet the joy of this book is its unrelenting attention to Rohan & Kate’s relationship that never is allowed to falter. There are a number of surprises that caught me off guard, but I happen to like that. It’s sort of Fibber McGee’s closet–it just opens up and falls all over you when you least expect it. Only the best writers really know how to do that.
So I recommend this book as one that is worthy of sinking one’s teeth into deeply, and one which will hold your interest, at least the love story part of it. True historical romance fiction fans will find this new and different and that departure from the usual historical romance refreshing.
I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.
The Series:
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