"A man can learn to live for revenge."

FINAL DECISION: At times dark and sad, this book is ultimately about the ability of the human spirit to endure and ultimately triumph. A wonderful companion to THE DUKE OF SHADOWS, I loved Liam and Anna's story.

THE STORY: Liam Devaliant, Earl of Lockwood, was kidnapped on his wedding day and sent as a prisoner to the colonies. He has returned a changed man bent on making the man who betrayed him pay. What he doesn't expect is the arrival of his br...

"A man can learn to live for revenge."

FINAL DECISION: At times dark and sad, this book is ultimately about the ability of the human spirit to endure and ultimately triumph. A wonderful companion to THE DUKE OF SHADOWS, I loved Liam and Anna's story.

THE STORY: Liam Devaliant, Earl of Lockwood, was kidnapped on his wedding day and sent as a prisoner to the colonies. He has returned a changed man bent on making the man who betrayed him pay. What he doesn't expect is the arrival of his bride who believes he deserted her on their wedding day. The four years that have passed have made Anna bitter. The two talked of a marriage where each would be free, but she did not expect her groom to disappear without a wedding night. Anna, however, does have something she needs from Liam and is determined to get it and then return to her home in Scotland.

OPINION: Powerful, emotional and sometimes dark, this is the story of a man who lost everything and how the love he left behind brings him back.

I loved this story become of the complex emotional heart of it. Anna and Liam lost so much four years ago. The structure of the book makes this especially poignant by intermixing the story of their courtship with their current reality. The switching between these time periods brings emphasis on the pain of their separation.

Liam is an honorable man who is struggling. Seeing the difference between the man he was four years ago and the man he is now is sometimes difficult. The way the book is written puts the reader in the same place as Anna who has to discover who the man she married is. He is a wonderful hero who centers this book.

Anna is strong-willed and independent and yet vulnerable under the face she shows others. That is another theme of this book, the faces that one shows. As Liam and Anna both discover the complexity of one another. That no face is false, but rather an aspect of character. But that there is a face that only can be shown to the one you love.

I alternately found this book sad and triumphant. While these two were torn apart, they manage to find their way to one another and build something different and perhaps stronger than what they would have had four years before.

Some characters are so vivid and fascinating that it is hard to close the book on them. Anna and Liam are those kinds of characters to me.

WORTH MENTIONING: This book deals with what we now call PTSD in a complicated and sober fashion.

CONNECTED BOOKS: THE SINS OF LORD LOCKWOOD is the sixth book in the Rules for the Reckless series. While the romance is separate, I recommend reading A LADY'S CODE OF MISCONDUCT and then a related book THE DUKE OF SHADOWS because this book flows nicely from those two books. The events of this book run somewhat concurrently with THE DUKE OF SHADOWS.

STAR RATING: I give this book 5 stars.

NOTE: I received and ARC of this book via Netgalley in order to prepare this review. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

This was my first Meredith Duran book but it won't be my last. Brilliant characterizations, especially the hero Lock, who was about as complex as they come and unusually strong in this day of cardboard characters and underdeveloped stories. Not here. An unusual love story with an old fashioned romance plot of the shanhai'd hero with a Duran twist of originality in the telling. Despite a tendancy in the beginning for the prose to be overwrought, to explain every thought, some minor editing klu...

This was my first Meredith Duran book but it won't be my last. Brilliant characterizations, especially the hero Lock, who was about as complex as they come and unusually strong in this day of cardboard characters and underdeveloped stories. Not here. An unusual love story with an old fashioned romance plot of the shanhai'd hero with a Duran twist of originality in the telling. Despite a tendancy in the beginning for the prose to be overwrought, to explain every thought, some minor editing klunkers, and the author's weakness--the complete inability to stay out of her characters heads for pages on end, the story itself is top-notch. That Anna did not believe the truth (which was the only logical explanation) was weak, annoying, and unlikely but that was rectified fairly quickly. So much more was right. The story had a richness of narrative and strong characters and dialogue. Recommended read.

This is a "wow" of a book. Full of angst, pain, anguish, hatred and self-hatred, shame, fear, guilt and regret. A story that has you thinking "if only he/she had..." or "why didn't he/she...", all the while knowing that Duran used all these human fears, mistakes, omissions, misinterpretations and misunderstandings to allow this story its full impact.

In 1857 Liam Devaliant, Lord Lockwood, is handsome and charming but in need of funds. Anna, Countess of Forth, needs to marry so that she has...

This is a "wow" of a book. Full of angst, pain, anguish, hatred and self-hatred, shame, fear, guilt and regret. A story that has you thinking "if only he/she had..." or "why didn't he/she...", all the while knowing that Duran used all these human fears, mistakes, omissions, misinterpretations and misunderstandings to allow this story its full impact.

In 1857 Liam Devaliant, Lord Lockwood, is handsome and charming but in need of funds. Anna, Countess of Forth, needs to marry so that she has full control over her Scottish island and its management. When they meet, they agree to a marriage of convenience, with a contract drawn up to allow each their own freedom and autonomy. What Liam and Anna hadn't counted on was falling in love. But as they approach their wedding day, neither reveals his or her feelings to the other. So they say their vows still believing the other party is only interested in that marriage of convenience between friends, not a love match.

Anna had grown up accustomed to being "left". Her father left her in the care of aunts. She was shuffled around from family to family as a girl. In Duran's words, "She had perfected the skill of being left..." and so "designed a marriage that would guarantee that [she] was left." When on their wedding night they quarrel and Liam goes out to cool off but never returns, Anna goes back to Scotland to hide. She'd been left again. She asks no questions about his whereabouts because, well, he obviously wanted to and meant to leave her.

But that wasn't at all the case. Liam had been abducted, thanks to his devious, jealous, greedy cousin Stephen who arranges for him to be taken away to New South Wales as a convict. There he is tortured and brutalized for over 3 years. When in 1861 he finally makes his way back to London, he does not contact Anna. One even gets the idea he would prefer not to see her again. Liam is a changed man. His brutal treatment has left him with PTSD, a fear that he is going mad, not a moment of peace, and a fierce, obsessive desire for revenge. He distracts himself with drink, drugs, loud parties and somewhat violent activities (one boxing scene is particularly affecting), and feels fear and shame about his new, perhaps-mad, violent self and scarred body and mind.

When Anna learns of his return, she's off to London, full of anger and resentment that he had never contacted her in all the years of his absence nor let her know of his return. Ignorant of what had really happened to him, she remains resentful and angry for much of the story, until she finally learns the truth. Then is when the guilt hits her: "He had not abandoned her. And she had wasted four years embroidering hateful fictions of him, when instead...she should have been searching for him. Raising the alarm and crying for justice. She had failed him."

What a heartwrenching, heartbreaking, sad, frustrating, complex, complicated, difficult reunion and eventual reconciliation there is to be found in these pages. But it must be read, not talked about. Their path to an HEA is not an easy one. This may be the most damaged hero I've ever encountered in historical romance and Duran does an excellent job of creating him in all his complexity. And he is paired with a formidable heroine, just the woman he needs to help him work through all his trauma and damage.

Duran's writing is so masterful that the reader can feel this couple's pain and anguish. This is not an easy read, but it's an excellent one. And if you can make it through all the heartbreak and torment, you'll be rewarded at the end with an epilogue that warms your heart and lets you know that their struggle was worth it all.