Judith’s review of Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle
Roderick Gideon Tremayne, the recently appointed Duke of Wentworth, never expected to find himself in New York City, tracking down a mysterious map important to his late mother. And he certainly never expected to be injured, only to wake up with no memory of who he is. But when he sees the fiery-haired beauty who’s taken it upon herself to rescue him, suddenly his memory is the last thing on his mind.
Georgia Milton, the young head of New York’s notorious Forty Thieves, feels responsible for the man who was trying to save her bag from a thief. But she’s not prepared for the fierce passion he ignites within her. When his memory begins to return, her whole world is threatened, and Roderick must choose between the life he forgot and the life he never knew existed.
There is culture class and then there is the Great Divide between social class. I’m not really sure which is more difficult to cross, but it would seem that in this new novel from Delilah Marvelle there is both. Certainly the young heir to the Duke of Wentworth was a striking figure of a man with his expensive clothes and the pure silver buttons on his classy vest. And when he approached Mrs Georgia Milton, young Irish-American citizen of New York City and one who is not loathe to let him know that his seemingly innocent advances are not wanted, it appeared that their paths would not ever again cross. That is, until a youthful thief made off with Georgia’s reticule and Roderick made after him, probably in the hope of not only saving the purse but impressing its owner. Didn’t work out quite that way, however. And as Roderick stepped off the curb in front of an omnibus, little did he realize that he was entering into an entirely unforeseen period of his life, one he could have never imagined.
Nor could Georgia. I know the blurb claims that she was head of the Forty Thieves, but I didn’t get that impression from the narrative. Rather I think the story says that Georgia’s stepson Matthew was really the head of the band of Irish do-gooders–sort of a collective Robin Hood who looked out for all the folks in their territory and as it turns out, they even took Roderick under their wing. Although by this time he didn’t know his own name and believed himself to be Robinson Crusoe. (It later came to light that this story was his childhood favorite.)
This is indeed a love story, but Georgia and Roderick might just as well have been on the opposite sides of the earth compared to any hope Georgia had of ever being accepted by the English ton. The tale is really as much about how Roderick and Georgia were able to see beneath the surface of each other and get past their prejudices. Certainly those who know Western European history know that the animosity between Irish and English was of long standing, even in the 19th century. Yet these two people began to see the worth they each possessed as human beings. When Roderick began to regain his memory that is when the %^&* hit the fan for these two. Yet there are some surprises which sort of came out of left field for me when it came to finding a resolution so that these two people were able to be together because it really looked like these two didn’t have the chance of an iceberg in hell to finding their way to one another.
There’s lots of humor and some really funny dialogue in this book. The Irish have such a wonderful way of telling it like it is and Georgia is the quintessential Irish-American woman who really knows the score and has found a way to survive the hardships immigrant peoples faced in this “land of the free.” And while this book is massively entertaining it is also a commentary on the reality of the class structure, both in New York as well as in London. We have all heard that one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Perhaps this novel shows us how.
I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place
This book is available from HQN Books. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
This romance didn’t really work for me but I loved, loved, loved the ending when Georgia made him crawl!