Romance

Heart of Deception by Taylor Chase

Karen Wheless

This one has been lurking in my TBR for a long time – glad I finally got to it!

Heart of Deception by Taylor Chase
(1999, Elizabethan)  7/14/12
Grade: 4.5

When Rafe Fletcher discovers his family has been implicated in a plot against Queen Elizabeth, he disguises himself as a simple fencing teacher and joins the thieving gang of Nicholas and Vivian Swift, the King and Queen of London’s underworld.  But things are not as they seem, and Rafe is soon drawn to the passionate Viv, despite the deceptions that lie between them.

A fascinating and exciting story of Elizabethan England.  Usually I’m not a big fan of criminal underworld stories, but this one was completely different.  The story of intrigue and spies kept me impatiently turning the pages, and the writing was superb.  I was fascinated by Vivian, who was a strong and passionate heroine, definitely out of the ordinary.  The romance was probably the weakest part of this book – the story just didn’t stop long enough for there to be much more to it than passionate attraction – but still, the book kept me interested from beginning to end.  I wish more books were set in Elizabethan England – such an interesting time period!  

I’m afraid my description doesn’t do full justice to this book – it’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year.  I wonder what happened to Taylor Chase?  She published a couple of books under this name and a couple of books under her real name, Gayle Feyrer, and then disappeared.  Her books got rave reviews but I guess they didn’t do well enough to keep her contract.  I did a little web surfing and found that she’s writing historical mysteries as Yves Fey, although she doesn’t seem to have written anything in ten years.  I wonder why Elizabethan books aren’t more popular?  The time period seems to be popular on TV but except for Susan Wiggs, it doesn’t seem to have been popular in romance.

Karen Wheless

I've been reading romance since I discovered Kathleen Woodiwiss at age 12. I love all kinds of romances, especially emotional and angsty stories. I finally cut back my TBR pile from 2000 books to only 400, but I still have lots of books left to read!

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