Sandy M’s review of A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore
Historical Romance published by Forever 1 Jun 09

After hearing so much about this book, I did hope that it would live up to the hype going around the internet.  It definitely did that and so much more. Ms. Haymore does a beautiful job of interweaving the lives of three characters you can’t help but like and sympathize with when fate takes an ugly and tragic turn, turning their lives into a living nightmare where before nothing but love had been between them.

Garrett, Tristan, and Sophie grew up together, inseparable until Garrett made his intentions toward Sophie known. Tristan gracefully bowed out, roaming the world and allowing his cousin to marry the woman they both loved. The newlyweds are ecstatically happy, but war intervenes and Garrett heads out to fight for his country, leaving behind a pregnant Sophie, never knowing he will some day be a father.

Word of Garrett’s death reach Tristan and Sophie and they take comfort in each other as they grieve. It takes a few more years before Sophie is ready to move on, but she’s fallen in love with Tristan and they marry, only to have their happiness torn in two a year later when Garrett storms back into their life, demanding their marriage be invalidated by the court while not giving a thought to how they feel about the situation. Sophie finds herself caught between the two men who mean everything to her, the two men she loves with all her heart, but there’s nothing she can do when her life with Tristan is annihilated with the stroke of a pen.

Garrett is not the same man she married, just as she’s not the same woman, and living with him again is both a joy and quite painful; she still loves him in spite of everything. He begins to exhibit strange behavior and doesn’t believe a word the quack of a doctor that her husband’s aide pulls out of thin air says; Garrett is not going insane. All the while, living without Tristan is also taking its toll; she loves him and misses him in her bed. And Tristan is not letting go this time, he’s doing everything he can to have their marriage re-validated, all the while trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Garrett. The closer she and Tristan get to uncovering that evil plot, the closer danger is to all of them, and it’s Sophie who is about to pay the highest price of all, in more ways than one.

Ms Haymore has given Sophie a dilemma that no woman would ever want to face. How do you choose between your best friends, the men you’ve loved all your life, loved in more than one way? She does a terrific job of giving the reader the points of view from all three characters; you get inside their heads and hearts to feel all those swirling, angry, tumultuous but poignant emotions, to live through all those painful memories, all that tragic heartache. Of course, the writing has to be terrific to get all of that across in the way that it is, and Ms. Haymore does one spectacular job of it all.

I loved every last word of A Hint of Wicked.

Grade: A+

Summary:

CAUGHT BETWEEN DUTY AND DESIRE…

Sophie, the Duchess of Calton, has finally moved on. After seven years mourning the loss of her husband, Garrett, at Waterloo, she has married his best friend and heir, Tristan. Sophie gives herself to him body and soul…until the day Garrett returns from the Continent, demanding his title, his lands—and his wife.

TORN BETWEEN TWO HUSBANDS…

Now Sophie must choose between her first love and her new love, knowing that no matter what, her choice will destroy one of the men she adores. Will it be Garrett, her childhood sweetheart, whose loss nearly destroyed her once already? Or will it be Tristan, beloved friend turned lover, who supported her through the last, dark years and introduced her to a passion she had never known? As her two husbands battle for her heart, Sophie finds herself immersed in a dangerous game—where the stakes are not only love…but life and death.

Read an excerpt.