I had a craving for a traditional Regency – thankfully I still have a good selection of those in my TBR pile.
The Genuine Article by Patricia Rice
(1994, Regency) 1/30/09
Grade: 3
Lady Marian Oglethorp is desperate for a wealthy husband to save her family from ruin, and she’s set her sights on Lord Darley. She will just have to keep her intelligence and wit hidden until after the wedding. The only obstacle is Darley’s best friend, Reginald Montague, who is skeptical of Marian and vows to protect Darley – even if it means kissing her himself!
The first half of this book was quite promising. I enjoyed the interplay between Marian and Reginald, and it was fun to watch two people who clearly belonged together, even if they were both fighting it. And I found Reginald intriguing – a younger son who ends up in trade and finds that he likes it. Unfortunately, the book made an abrupt detour in the second half, when the story turns to a missing necklace. We get a confusing story about a mysterious American cousin, a thief who’s secretly in cahoots with the cousin, and jewels disappearing and reappearing. The love story gets pushed onto the back burner, and that was a great disappointment. If only the author had continued the story she’d started, the book would have been a real gem.
Even though I didn’t care for this book in the end, it makes me want to look up other Regencies by Patricia Rice. She’s written a lot of single title books, of course (I’ve read some of them), but the wittiness and character interaction in the first half of this book makes me think that she might have a great Regency in her. But I’m not sure if she wrote that many Regencies – as far as I remember, she switched over to single titles pretty quickly.
Karen Wheless
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