The Deception
Grade : C

The Deception is told in the first person narrative, from the heroine's point of view. Because many of us read romance for the heroes, this is a problem. For we get to see the hero and learn about him through the eyes of his heroine and younger brother, but never get to really know him ourselves.

That's a shame because, wow, this is quite a hero! A hero of the Napoleonic wars, an honorable diplomat, a kind and caring older brother, a son who took the abuse of his wretched father to keep his younger siblings safe, a handsome yet unconceited man, a good lover... well, you get the idea.

Adrian Woodrow is a Major, a Viscount, an Earl, and a Baron, all rolled up in a handsome package. He is not arrogant, he is not full of himself, and he has just been forced, at gunpoint, to marry the niece of Lord Charlwood, a man with a grudge.

Kate is the innocent dupe of her revenge-minded uncle. Forced to live with him after the death of her beloved Irish father (her mother died years before), she fears her uncle. She fears him so much that she acquiesces to her uncle's demand that she marry Adrian, thereby setting up the conflict of this story.

The conflict is internal - not to Kate and Adrian's relationship - but within Kate. As she falls in love with the good man she's married, she decides she cannot let him know she loves him because he was forced to marry her. She thinks he loves another and that she has ruined his life.

So she battles back and forth, loving him but hating herself for ruining his chance for love. She decides she will love him less if she keeps him at a distance, and confides in his younger brother Harry rather than involve Adrian in schemes to prove her father was murdered.

Harry is a different younger brother than I'd expected. He is not at all bitter toward his older brother - he loves, respects, and envies him as apparently the entire world does, with the exception of Lord Charlwood.

All this goodness is a tad dull. The author tries to liven things up with the secondary plot involving horses, duplicity, and murder. But the relationship between Adrian and Kate never gels. One reason is purposeful; the author wants to bring them together in a climactic rescue scene at the end.

The other reason is presumably not purposeful because it is flawed - by telling this story solely through Kate's eyes, Adrian remains a hero of mythological yet inhuman proportions. I don't mind reading a romance where the hero is truly heroic, but I need to know what's going on in his head once in awhile.

Another possible reason why the relationship never quite gels is because this Regency-era historical has too much of a traditional Regency a feel to it (which makes sense given Wolf's publishing history). The relationship between hero and heroine is a bit too formal. On the one hand, I believe this was the author's intent. On the other hand, I believe she took it too far.

Because of the formality and first person narrative, it was very difficult to know this couple as a couple. Had the author found a way to show Adrian's point of view - perhaps when he is jealous of Harry's relationship with Kate, or making love to her, or finding her in the evil clutches of her uncle - he would have seemed less a god and more a man.

And, after all, shouldn't a romance be about the relationship between a man and a woman?

Finally, is anyone else getting a bit bored by the "I can't show him that I love him because it's not fair to him" theme? This reviewer understands that any theme, if done well, can work. Maybe I've read too many books lately with this plot device, but here it seemed overdone and contrived.

Reviewed by Laurie Likes Books
Grade : C

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : November 1, 1996

Publication Date: 1996

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