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Regency Duo #1
Illusion
She arrived from India shrouded in silk and mystery--an English woman trained in the erotic secrets of the harem.
A darkly handsome spy with secrets of his own, he swore to resist her charms but could he resist his own overwhelming desire?
Was it love, or just...ILLUSION
In the year of Waterloo, with the fate of Europe at stake, two extraordinary people come together in a game that pits passion against cunning. A trained courtesan, Frances Woodard is drawn into a dangerous web of intrigue and deception by brilliant spy Nigel Arundham, Marquess of Rivaulx. Ensnared in the seductive spell of desire, while enemies and deadly plots surround them, two brave souls hang in the balance--in a seemingly impossible quest for honor, compassion, and love.
A darkly handsome spy with secrets of his own, he swore to resist her charms but could he resist his own overwhelming desire?
Was it love, or just...ILLUSION
In the year of Waterloo, with the fate of Europe at stake, two extraordinary people come together in a game that pits passion against cunning. A trained courtesan, Frances Woodard is drawn into a dangerous web of intrigue and deception by brilliant spy Nigel Arundham, Marquess of Rivaulx. Ensnared in the seductive spell of desire, while enemies and deadly plots surround them, two brave souls hang in the balance--in a seemingly impossible quest for honor, compassion, and love.
368 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 11, 2007
The one where the man is a spy against Napoleon and the woman is an Englishwoman who's spent years in a harem in India.
Pretty dreadful. People's backstory is withheld for insane periods of time and then regurgitated in great chunks of dialog almost (but not quite) just in time to stop you from strangling them because you thought they had no good reason to behave the way they did. Secondary characters are trustworthy because Nigel says they "cannot be suspected" (and he's always right), or else they change apparent sides every fifty pages to make for more suspense.
If it hadn't been in the bathroom it would have been abandoned after three chapters, but I'm actually kind of glad it wasn't, because now I know for sure it was that bad all the way through.
Sex was pretty nice, except that there, as elsewhere, the emotional tone could change every paragraph without warning.
Pretty dreadful. People's backstory is withheld for insane periods of time and then regurgitated in great chunks of dialog almost (but not quite) just in time to stop you from strangling them because you thought they had no good reason to behave the way they did. Secondary characters are trustworthy because Nigel says they "cannot be suspected" (and he's always right), or else they change apparent sides every fifty pages to make for more suspense.
If it hadn't been in the bathroom it would have been abandoned after three chapters, but I'm actually kind of glad it wasn't, because now I know for sure it was that bad all the way through.
Sex was pretty nice, except that there, as elsewhere, the emotional tone could change every paragraph without warning.
January 17, 2013
I miss authors like this, guess it was an era...
September 2, 2021
ILLUSION by Jean Ross Ewing is a historical romance novel published by Berkley in September 1998. The novel takes place in 1815, shortly before Napoleon's fall at Waterloo. The hero of the novel is Nigel, Marquess of Rivaulx, who works as a spy for England. He attempts to uncover who has been sending military secrets to the French and suspects that it is a man named Donnington, who has recently acquired an exotic mistress from India named Frances. She is the heroine of the novel, and actually a young English woman who spent "four years in the harem of a maharaja in India, and been trained in the notorious ways of the Ganika, the professional courtesan" (page 20). Donnington loses badly to Nigel at their "gaming hell," and to pay the cost, it is agreed that Nigel will hold a wild party (orgy) at Donnington's home and allowed to take one item there -- that being Frances. But during the night, Donnington is murdered and Nigel is poisoned, and so the mystery deepens.
I started reading this book on a whim, but kept reading it because I got sucked into the storyline -- although unfortunately it took me much longer to finish reading (over a month) than it should have. In fact, by around page 40, I considered giving up on the book, but I dislike the idea of judging a novel on a DNF ("did not finish") basis, so I soldiered on. Ordinarily a novel like this would have easily rated 4 or 5 stars for me, but the fact that it was such a long slog, not helped by the heroine's lack of appeal, made it a 3.5 star book instead. I did like the hero of the book, however, although by the end it was hard to understand why he was so devoted to the heroine, who for much of the book has a somewhat cold attitude towards him. I do think that the book was well-written, with more text devoted to actions than to thoughts (as is my preference) and enough historical detail to give the story some depth without becoming a history lesson. So, I enjoyed the book, but not as much as I wanted to, hence my 3.5 star rating.
I started reading this book on a whim, but kept reading it because I got sucked into the storyline -- although unfortunately it took me much longer to finish reading (over a month) than it should have. In fact, by around page 40, I considered giving up on the book, but I dislike the idea of judging a novel on a DNF ("did not finish") basis, so I soldiered on. Ordinarily a novel like this would have easily rated 4 or 5 stars for me, but the fact that it was such a long slog, not helped by the heroine's lack of appeal, made it a 3.5 star book instead. I did like the hero of the book, however, although by the end it was hard to understand why he was so devoted to the heroine, who for much of the book has a somewhat cold attitude towards him. I do think that the book was well-written, with more text devoted to actions than to thoughts (as is my preference) and enough historical detail to give the story some depth without becoming a history lesson. So, I enjoyed the book, but not as much as I wanted to, hence my 3.5 star rating.
June 11, 2013
I agree with Res' review of this one.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews