LynneC’s review of The Bed and the Bachelor (Byrons of Braebourne, Book 5) by Tracy Anne Warren
Historical Romance published by Avon 26 Jul 11

If you want to read a historical where the heroine repeatedly date rapes the hero, then you’ve come to the right place. This is the book for you. But let me start at the beginning. This is a book that started a little bit iffy and carried on down, with a dislikeable heroine and a clueless hero. It posed a question for me. Is it okay to have date rape if the book is a historical and it’s the heroine who does it to the hero?

Let me backtrack a little, see if you agree with me.

The heroine, Sebastianne, is posing as a housekeeper in the household of a man with the unfortunate and unlikely name of Drake Byron. Lord Drake Byron, if you please. He’s the fourth son of a duke, and I presume I’ve come in on the tail-end of a series. Obviously using the “Mad, Bad and Dangerous” tag which was attached to Lord Byron by Lady Caroline Lamb, this is fixed firmly in an alternate Regency where the real Lord Byron doesn’t exist.

Okay, so I was extremely skeptical when Sebastianne got the job, despite being 22. Housekeepers were invariably mature women, who’d worked up through the household hierarchy and I don’t imagine any employer would even consider her for the job. But I let it go, because I wanted to see where the story went.

Until the end of the first chapter. Then Sebastianne reveals to the reader that she is a French spy. Oh dear. I avoid spy books set in the Regency. Spies weren’t gentlemen, they were considered liars and cheats, until the advent of James Bond, when Fleming put  a brand new and brilliant spin on what used to be a disreputable profession. And worse, she’s a reluctant spy, because they are holding her family to ransom. So she’s being blackmailed. Ugh. I’d rather have read a book with a committed French spy, someone who believed in what she was doing. But no, Sebastianne is a martyr.

She is there to get a copy of a cipher which the mathematically brilliant Drake has made up for the government. He keeps the key to his safe on a chain around his neck. So Sebastianne drugs him, then sneaks into his room one night.

What follows is an almost casebook example of date rape. She gives him the Regency equivalent of rohypnol. Makes him sleepy and randy. She sneaks into his room in her night clothes.  He half wakes, and wants her. He pursues her, she does the “no, no” thing and goes to bed with him. She gets the wax impression of the key.

This is what the Women’s Health site says about the effects of date rape:

• “You feel drunk and haven’t drunk any alcohol — or, you feel like the effects of drinking alcohol are stronger than usual.
• You wake up feeling very hung over and disoriented or having no memory of a period of time.
• You remember having a drink, but cannot recall anything after that.
• You find that your clothes are torn or not on right.
• You feel like you had sex, but you cannot remember it.”

Which is how Drake is described as feeling the morning after. Drake can remember having sex with Sebastianne, or Anne, as he knows her as, but he thinks it’s a dream, vaguely. Although he makes the approach to her, it’s clear to her that he’s not in his right mind. After all, she drugged him. If this had happened with the sexes reversed, the romance community would be up in arms, but it can happen the other way, too. And she isn’t remorseful, except with regard to herself. Would she get caught? Would he sack her before she’d stolen the papers from him?

Mind you, I’m almost in sympathy with her because of an earlier scene when Drake, coming home from an enthusiastic session with his perfectly nice mistress, has inner thoughts about lusting after his housekeeper. Very heroic, right? Erm, no.

The second time they have sex, Drake is drunk. So mark that down as two date rapes. He isn’t used to being drunk.

I really didn’t believe in Sebastianne, and I didn’t care for her. She’s a typical passive-aggressive rapist, denies her own feelings, denies his, and blames somebody else (the French). He’s a mathematical wiz who thinks it’s okay to have sex with one woman to get another out of his system.

The style is a little off. I have to give Warren kudos for trying to recreate the Regency era, although she peoples it with characters who seem to have been transplanted in the modern era. And cowboys. There is one scene in which Drake and his brother Cade discuss the issues over a cigar. She transports me to the old West, when characters had names like Cade and Drake, and smoked stogies. Certainly not the Regency era.

There are some details that aren’t quite right, as well. The “g” word turned up more than somewhat and several American terms like “quit” for “leave,” “candy” for “sweets” and the startling modern sentence, “I’m through with her.” But it won’t bother the average U.S. reader, and since American-authored historicals rarely travel far, that should work out fine. They’re common enough phrases for her readers not to notice, although to a British reader, it reads very “American” (so why doesn’t Avon employ a few British beta readers?) I did appreciate that she’s done some research into the era, but the household was more Downton Abbey (Edwardian) than Northanger Abbey, and some of the characters belowstairs seem to have come directly from that series.

Her style bothers me a bit, too. She describes something, then there’s a paragraph of static description, so that drags the book down and makes it a bit of a slog to read. I prefer it when details are incorporated into the action. But this seems to be the way she writes, or at least, she does in this book.

I’m really sorry this book didn’t work out for me. I did try to like it, I really did, and I did force myself to read to the end, but I’m afraid neither character redeems themselves for me.

Grade: D

Summary:

Everyone knows the Byron brothers are “mad, bad, and dangerous.” But the devilishly desirable fourth son, Drake, is too scholarly to misbehave . . . or is he?

Lord Drake Byron has no time in his busy life to worry about taking a wife. He is more interested in the unbreakable code he has developed to defeat Napoleon’s forces. Little does he know that the irresistibly lovely new housekeeper he’s hired is really a French secret agent.

Sebastianne Dumont is not at all who she seems to be. Forced to spy to save her family, she embarks on a mission that takes an even more dangerous turn when she falls in love with the surprisingly tempting man she must ultimately betray. And if she succeeds in her mission, will she also break Lord Drake’s heart, while leaving her own behind?

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: