Tracy’s review of More Than A Stranger by Erin Knightley.

Some secrets are meant to be shared…

An Uncovered Betrayal

When his family abandoned him at Eton, Benedict Hastings found an unexpected ally in his best friend’s sister. Her letters kept him going— until the day he had to leave everything behind. Years later, Benedict has seen his share of betrayal, but when treachery hits close to home, he turns to his old friend for safe haven…

An Unwanted Attraction

After five torturous years on the marriage circuit, Lady Evelyn Moore is finally free to live her life as she wishes. So when her brother shows up with a dashing stranger, she finds herself torn between her dreams…and newfound desires.

An Unstoppable Intrigue

Despite his determination to keep Evie at a distance, Benedict cannot deny the attraction that began with a secret correspondence. Yet as they begin to discover each other, the dangers of Benedict’s world find them, threatening their lives, their love, and everything they thought they could never have…

Evelyn Moore is eleven years old when her brother and best friend, Richard, heads off to Eton. She loves corresponding with him but when his letters start to talk CONSTANTLY of his new friend Hastings Evie gets a little peeved. She finally decides that she’s going to sit down and let Hastings know, in no uncertain terms, that the position of Richard’s best friend has already been filled, by her, and that he should not expect to ever take her place. Hastings is only 13 years old himself but he is thrilled to get a letter from Richard’s sister as he’d never gotten a letter before (his family didn’t care for him) and he immediately writes back. Though their correspondence begins in a somewhat contentious manner the pair soon start to write more about themselves and get to know each other and become friends. They continue to write for the next 5 years until Evie gets a letter from Hastings that breaks her heart and she never hears from him again.

Cut to seven years later and Hastings contacts his friend Richard (who he HAS been in contact with over the years). Hastings would like to head to Richard’s family home for some quiet time to do some serious thinking about an important matter. At this point we know that the thinking that Hastings has to do is something quite serious but as a reader we are not made privy to this information – which I did find a bit frustrating. Unfortunately Hastings believed that Richard’s family had already gone to London for the season when he made the request of Richard but they had not. Hastings meets Evie for the first time and he is blown away by her in every way. He makes a point to introduce himself as James Benedict (his real name being Benedict James Hastings) and therefore hiding his true identity from Evie. But Hastings can’t manage to stay away from Evie, as much as he tells himself he should. Evie, who is now 23 and trying to get her parents to let her bow out of what will be her 6th year on the marriage mart, wants nothing but to stay home and continue working in the family horse business. She honestly does not believe in love and believes that marriage and family is not for her – although she secretly longs for those things.

When Evie meets James Benedict she thinks that maybe she was wrong. She had been in love with Hastings all those years ago and he had broken her heart. She thought she could never find it in her to love again but when she meets Benedict she starts to think that maybe she’s wrong. Unfortunately when she discovers who he really is she’s beyond angry and wants nothing to do with him.

It’s at this point that we discover what Benedict has been doing the past seven years, why he broke Evie’s heart, why he needed to think over an important matter and what that matter is exactly: what he thinks is his brothers betrayal of country and King. He heads to confront his demons, both physical and metaphorical but as mad as Evie is, will she let the one man she’s ever loved get away.

This book started off on an excellent foot. The thought that an 11 year old girl who have to guts to write and confront her brother’s friend made me smile and laugh for quite a while. I loved that Evie had the pluck to stand up for her relationship with Richard. The fact that the correspondence continued warmed my heart. Now we don’t get to see too much of the writing but we do get to see snippets of it before each chapter of the story begins. I loved seeing the fondness and caring that Hastings and Evie had for each other even though they’d never actually met.

Once Hastings meets Evie he is bowled over. He imagined her as strong and beautiful but nothing could compare to the real thing. She was not only what she imagined but so much more – caring, loving, loyal and he couldn’t keep himself away. We kept being taken back to the though that he couldn’t get closer to her because of his dilemma but of course we had no clue what that was – even halfway through the book. I have to say that I’m completely impatient when it comes to things like that. Ok, don’t tell the other characters but tell your readers, darnit! lol The only time I like to be kept in the dark is when I’m reading a mystery. Maybe that’s why I don’t read more mysteries – but I digress. We have no clue what has Benedict so in a quandary and this made it hard for me to sympathize with him. He was a fabulous guy but yet, I didn’t feel like I got to know him all that well because I couldn’t see that side of him.

When Benedict’s problem came to the forefront this brought us to a whole other portion of the book in a way that it almost seemed to be separate in some way. I can’t explain it without giving too much away. I think because of the fact that we’d been in the dark as to the issue that had Benedict upset I didn’t feel like I was as connected to the last part of the books as I felt I should have been. I would have liked to have seen the two parts of the book interwoven more so that the transition from romance to suspense would have been more seamless.

In the end it was still a cute romance with a good HEA. I definitely look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

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