Guest Review: Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter

Audrianna Kelmsleigh is unattached, independent-and armed. Her adversary is Lord Sebastian Sommerhays. What they have in common is Audrianna’s father, who died in a scandalous conspiracy-a deserved death in Sebastian’s eyes. Audrianna vows to clear her father’s name, never expecting to fall in love with the man devoted to destroying it…

Lord Sebastian Summerhays is the brother of a marquess who was severely wounded in the Napoleonic War and who is unable to attend to his responsibilities and duties, both for his tenants, properties, family, as well as in Parliament. Lord Sebastian has stepped in to meet many of those demands and a part of that is to investigate fraud and corruption for the Board of Ordinance that resulted in unnecessary deaths of England’s fighting men. One of the casualties of these investigations was Horatio Kelmsleigh, a man we would call a “quality control” expert and who has been blamed for the shipping of gunpowder that failed to ignite, thus leaving many infantry soldiers vulnerable to lethal attack by the French. As a result of the accusations and being unable to clear his name, Kelmsleigh committed suicide. His daughter is determined to prove her father’s innocence, and it is in that cause celebre that she encounters Lord Sebastian at a Brighton inn. The encounter becomes known by the London gossips who then turn it into a scandal that threatens Audrianna’s reputation as well as Lord Sebastian’s effectiveness in the House of Commons. Thus, an arranged marriage.

One again we have the classic Regency format – an arranged marriage for whatever reason, wherein the parties must find a way to initially survive the stresses of being intimate with another person who may or may not be compatible physically, but who most assuredly do not enter into the relationship for love. Madeline Hunter is a skilled writer that “takes on” the Regency format and instills interest, spice, conflict, and suspense into the story. She brings Audrianna and Lord Sebastian together and there is certainly desire and physical attraction. However, there is the unrelenting presence of Audrianna’s father and the desire to clear his name that is sort of an emotional “wound” that just never seems to go away. There is mystery in this story and until that mystery is resolved the growing affection between these two can never truly be whole. Hunter seems to always have other secondary “bad guys” lurking . . . I like “lurking” a lot because it provides another layer of conflict that keeps the reader turning the pages to discover the resolution. I think this multi-dimensional approach is true of truly good writers.

I liked these people. Lord Sebastian is a very good man who wants to know the truth, no matter how it may hurt even his own family or friends. He draws Audrianna into his life for a variety of reasons but he appears to be genuinely concerned about her long-term welfare. He is willing to pay his “penance” to Audrianna’s mother and sister as the one who apparently drove their husband and father to death by his own hand. Yet he loves his brother and shields his from their controlling mother and even from his own brother’s self-destructive urges.

Audrianna is one of Hunter’s gutsy ladies—pushy, relentless, loyal, bright, gifted, and one of a kind. She is a song writer, a teacher of music, willing to earn her own way even if that means living in near poverty. She protects her family and loves her friends. She is willing to put her life and reputation on the line to bring justice to her father and ultimately remove the stain of infamy from her family. Yet she is generous with Sebastian’s brother and becomes one of his true friends. She is generous with her mother and sister, and she is willing to be generous with her husband, not knowing if he has grown to love her, but willing to live without that love in order to bring good to her family and friends and to him. She is an all-around good person and I really like her. Audrianna and Sebastian deal gently with one another as they discover the depth of their mutual regard which becomes affection which becomes love. And I love seeing the bad guys get their just desserts.

Regency romance fans have long loved Hunter’s books. She will not disappoint them her either.

I give this book a 4.5 rating out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place

This book is available from Jove. You can buy it here or here in e-format.