To Desire a Devilby Elizabeth Hoytreviewed by Cybil SolynNovember 2009, 384 pages, Publisher: Grand Central, ISBN: 0446406945 Back Cover Blurb: Reynaud St. Aubyn has spent the last seven years in hellish captivity. Now half mad with fever he bursts into his ancestral home and demands his due. Can this wild-looking man truly be the last earl's heir, thought murdered by Indians years ago?
Beatrice Corning, the niece of the present earl, is a proper English miss. But she has a secret: No real man has ever excited her more than the handsome youth in the portrait in her uncle's home. Suddenly, that very man is here, in the flesh-and luring her into his bed.
Only Beatrice can see past Reynaud's savagery to the noble man inside. For his part, Reynaud is drawn to this lovely lady, even as he is suspicious of her loyalty to her uncle. But can Beatrice's love tame a man who will stop at nothing to regain his title-even if it means sacrificing her innocence?
I've run a bit hot and cold with the "Four Soldiers" series, but with the final book tying everything up nicely, I now look on the series as a whole with fond memories and a pleased smile.
The "Four Soldiers" series tells of the four soldiers who survived a brutal massacre and subsequent torture at the battle of Spinner Falls in the Colonies. The survivors have been brought together because it looks like Spinner Falls was the handy work of a British traitor. The man that tied these four men together was their Captain, Reynaud St. Aubyn whom they watched burn at the stake...or did they?
Reynaud was captured during Spinners Falls, but he wasn't killed. No, he was taken to an Indian camp and has lived as a slave for the past seven years. Finally able to escape, he returns to Britain, feverish, starving, and with a hint of post-traumatic stress, to a home he no longer owns and a title that has been given to someone else. His father has died and the title has passed to a distant cousin who doesn't want to give it up to the savage, madman Reynaud has become. But Reynaud will not stand for this. His years away have changed him, made him harder, and he will do anything to get his title back. He'll even marrying the niece of his enemy, Beatrice Corning.
Beatrice has been obsessed with Reynaud since she first saw his likeness in a painting when her uncle took over the title. It seems silly even to her, but she admits that she's had a crush on the carefree and vibrant young man who died at Spinners Falls. But the young man she knows from the painting is nothing like the living, breathing man who makes her heart beat and her insides quake with longing.
In the usual Hoyt style, there is a fairytale that runs parallel to the story and foreshadows the chapter's events. Out of all the series' fairy tales this one was most interesting to me and had me turning the pages just as quickly as the main plot. And I did rip through this book. I was fascinated by Reynaud and what he had suffered. But even more so, I was fascinated by how driven Reynaud was in his love for Beatrice.
Beatrice and Reynaud are a wonderful couple. He is damaged and struggling with his civility. She is calm and caring and accepts Reynaud just as he is. I really liked how Hoyt didn't make Beatrice a saint. She wasn't perfect, but she was obviously caring and a peacemaker. I wish there had been more interaction between Reynaud and her uncle, "The Usurper," as Reynaud called him. It seemed odd that her uncle would go to court to fight to keep the title, but not try and stop Beatrice from having a relationship with a man he felt wasn't fit to be an earl.
Most importantly, the Spinners Fall mystery didn't eclipse the romance which has been my big complaint of this series. In this book the mystery moved the romance along and also allowed us to visit with characters we loved in the other books. When the traitor is finally revealed and dealt with a sense of completion washed over me because that meant that all the other heroes and heroines from the series could finally live happily ever after without any villains in their lives.
Bottom Line: A good, fast read, and a satisfying ending to the "Four Soldiers" saga.
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Cybil Solyn, csolyn@rakehell.com
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