Lady Vengeance

by Melinda Hammond

England in 1753 is a dangerous place. King George II sits uneasily upon the throne, fearful of another Jacobite uprising, and many noblemen play on these fears in their quest for power. Among them is Guy Morellon—hated, feared, and almost unassailable. But when Madame Elinor de Sange returns to England, bent on revenge, Morellon finds himself pitted against a dangerous adversary. For Elinor has a ruby that holds the key to his destruction and that of other men who ruined her life 8 years earlier. Revenge, though, carries a high price and Elinor finds she is no longer the Lady of Stone. She must learn to trust and forgive—if bitterness does not destroy her first.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2003

About the author

I write under the names of Melinda Hammond and Sarah Mallory.

I have been telling stories for as long as I can remember - many of them born of frustration when I was stuck in a classroom longing to be rescued! I love anything romantic, whether it is a grand opera or a beautiful painting. It doesn't necessarily have to be happy, as long as it is inspiring.

I was born in Bristol and grew up on Barton Hill, an area of small terraced houses built in the nineteenth century between the mills and the railway. I think my love of adventure stories is due to the fact that I grew up with three older brothers and lived in a street full of boys! My love of history and the English language was fostered at grammar school, where I soon discovered the delights of Georgian and Regency fiction, first of all with the works of Jane Austen and then Georgette Heyer.

I left school at sixteen to work in companies as varied as stockbrokers, marine engineers, biscuit manufacturers and even a quarrying company, but I never lost my love of history, and when I wasn't reading and researching the Georgian and Regency period I was writing stories about it.

When I was at home with my first child, I decided to try my hand at writing seriously, and my first historical novel, Fortune's Lady, was published by Robert Hale in 1980. I have now published more than twenty novels, over a dozen of them as Melinda Hammond, winning the Reviewers Choice award in 2005 from Singletitles.com for Dance for a Diamond and the Historical Novel Society's Editors Choice in 2006 for Gentlemen in Question. Writing as Sarah Mallory for Harlequin Mills & Boon, The Earl's Runaway Bride won a coveted CataNetwork Reviewers Choice award for 2010 and the RNA's RoNA Rose Award in 2012 and 2013.

For many years I lived in an old farmhouse on the edge of the Pennines in West Yorkshire, literally a stone's throw from open moorland. Now I live by the sea in the wild Highlands of Scotland. I love walking to think up my latest plot, or just to clear my head ready for another session of writing.

Reviews

[tinalouisereadsbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

England in 1753 is a dangerous place. King George II sits uneasily upon the throne, fearful of another Jacobite uprising, and many noblemen play on these fears in their quest for power. Among them is Guy Morellon - hated, feared, and almost unassailable. But when Madame Elinor de Sange returns to England, bent on revenge, Morellon finds himself pitted against a dangerous adversary. For Elinor has a ruby that holds the key to his destruction and that of other men who ruined her life 8 years earlier. Revenge, though, carries a high price and Elinor finds she is no longer the Lady of Stone. She must learn to trust and forgive - if bitterness does not destroy her first.


My Thoughts:

At first from the description I thought this was going to be a historical novel. It turned out that it wasn’t.

Young Elinor goes to visit a sick friend at the Black Goose Inn and is entrapped by Guy Morellon and his four cronies who brutally rape her and then that in turn causes tragic events. Eight years later Elinor by a chance meets one of her attackers and sets out on revenge with the intent of killing her attackers one by one. Fate has different ideas.

So this book was ok. It wasn’t brilliant and with the back bone of the story being what it was I would have liked the story to have been a little bit more gritty. I think the book was edging more on romance with a love interest in the form of Lord Davenahm, and there was a highwayman thrown in for good measure. I have to say it was the highwayman that kept my interest as he was the best character in the book.

I am not sure if I would want to read another book by this author but it was on ok read.

[BookwormWithGoggles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoy Melinda Hammond's books and have read pretty much everything she's written. I didn't finish reading this book. Within the first chapter of the book, we are exposed to the reason Elinor was ruined. She was savagely molested by 5 noblemen as a young teenager. The ghastly scene was described in detail.The idea of the heroine suffering such a fate was horrible enough but to have to read the details as well put me off and I could not then just sit back, put my feet up and continue the tale. Not only that, but that her father wanting to avenge her honour once he became aware of what had happened was then slaughtered like he was a nobody by her rapists was just too much.
Would an inn keeper who knew the victim ( and that her father was a nobleman too) stand by and allow her to suffer without any attempt to help her. Would he have allowed her to be in that situation in the first place? All that grimness could have have been reduced by 90% and we would still have had a good basis for a plot of vengeance.
I didn't expect this gritty realism in a regency so called romance novel. It may still appeal to others but I am someone who reads to escape from harsh realities of everyday life and not to be reminded of them. Not for me. Did not finish!