Gwen’s review of Secrets of Surrender (The Rothwell Series, Book 3) by Madeline Hunter
Historical romance released by by Dell 20 May 08

Imagine my total surprise that while we have talked about this series on TGTBTU, we’ve yet to review any of the books!  Were I a late Regency/early Victorian young miss, I’d be having vapors right about now.  Someone pass the smelling salts and allow me to rectify this egregious oversight with a well-reasoned treatise on why this is a very satisfying read.  Plus, the next book in the series, The Sins of Lord Easterbrook, is out next week and now Sybil and I are both are squeeing about it… 

How was that for some pseudo-Victorian speak?  Not bad for a cowgirl from San Antonio, huh?  Well, minus the “squeeing”, of course.

I picked this book up because I love yellow and the cover caught my eye.  How’s that for a selection criteria? 😉  Plus, I was pretty paranormaled out and was itching for a historical.  And, reading the blurb, this looked like just what I needed: well-born damsel in distress heroine, common man who makes good hero, some scandal, some redemption.  So I settled in for a nice long read.

Wrong.  Sucked this puppy down in 1.5 days.  Sob!  NOOO!  KAAAAHHHNNNN!!!!!!!!  Sorry.  Sorry.  Small break with reality there.  I’m back now.

So, I read this thing fast.  The story was engrossing and covered a LOT of ground.  Plus there were so many places the plot could have gone – so many side-stories that could have been pursued and the author would have had a perfectly good book.  There was the whole “run away with the brother” thing.  Then there was the “mine shaft collapse and rescue” thing.   The “rescue her from the rapist” thing.  It would have all been perfectly acceptable side-trips to take to bring about the conflict, climax, and denouement.  Instead, Hunter stays true to the main characters, keeps her focus, and lets the story be about the romance and not all the fluff and bother of all this other stuff.

Instead of a “road novel” or “social message” or “white knight” story, we get a story about a man and woman who are flawed, have made mistakes, have married according to their then-current social norms, and ‘find’ each other as well as themselves in the process.  They fall in love in the midst of a series of surprisingly torrid scandals (for the day – well, for today too), but still have some very big personal hurdles and lots of sacrifice on each other’s parts.

I loved the story of this hero and heroine, Kyle and Roselyn.  Were there small things about both characters that weren’t perfect in the book?  Sure, but I didn’t care.  I just loved the story.  At the start, Kyle is so proper and tightl-laced, the guy very nearly squeaked as he walked; and Roselyn is such a selfish idiot with some very boneheaded ideas that I wanted to slap her and say “wake up you ninny!”  But what’s wonderful is they both muddle their way through and, in the process, bring out the best in each other.  And isn’t that what a good marriage is about?

This is really a very lovely story of how to love someone.  How to let your partner be their own person, make mistakes and support them anyway.  How to be a friend before you’re a lover, but still be a lover when it counts.  It’s EXACTLY what I love to read in a romance novel – crisis, redemption, and resolution.  Overcoming what life throws at each of us every bloody day and still hanging in there, because if there’s one thing we all know, life is a bitch sometimes and having a supportive partner sure makes it easier.

You go a long way emotionally with these two characters.  Watching their process – well, reading about it – is worth the emotional investment.  Reading about all the fascinating secondary characters and trying to keep track of the rather large cast, is worth it.  Wondering if the author is going to take the easy way out and let the story devolve down one of the side trips is worth it.

I recommend this book to any fan of historical, or non-historical, romance.  It can be read as a standalone, but based on this entry, I’m going to have to find the other books in the series and absolutely get Lord Easterbrook’s entry next week.  Thanks, Madeline, for a terrific read – even if I did finish it in one night!

Grade: A

Read other information about this series by clicking on its tag.

Summary:

First he’ll learn her most intimate secrets. Then he’ll arouse her deepest passions. He’s the lover she’s been waiting for: the man who can rescue her from her wicked past-for a price-in Madeline Hunter’s tale of sin, seduction, and irresistible, impossible love.

He catches her eye across the dining room-a handsome stranger who stands out among the lewd noblemen and bawdy painted women. But their worlds are about to collide in a way Roselyn Longworth could never have imagined. For before the night is out, she will be auctioned off to the highest bidder…and Kyle Bradwell will lead her from one kind of hell to another. Yet from the moment he wins her, Kyle treats Rose with a gentleness she hasn’t known since a family scandal destroyed her reputation. And when she finally learns what is really driving Kyle, it’s too late. For Rose has fallen for the man who knows her most intimate secrets. Now he has stunned her with a proposal of marriage-the first step in a seduction that will demand nothing less than her complete surrender….

Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series: