Lady Beware

Author: Jo Beverley
Published: June 5, 2007 (Signet)
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 5/10

This is a prime example of the old adage: "Don't judge a book by its cover." I saw this book and thought it looked so romantic and lovely. And I really enjoyed Beverley's previous book, To Rescue a Rogue, so the book about the sister of that title's hero should be pretty good too, right?

Not so much. I spent the first two-thirds of the book figuring out if I disliked the hero, Horatio "Canem" Darien, Viscount Cave. His family has suffered disastrous scandal in the past and he has decided to restore the family name by taking advantage of the Debenham family. He makes a deal with Thea, sister to Dare of To Rescue a Rogue, saying he'll vouch for Dare (he'd been suspected of ducking out of his duties as a soldier during the war) if Thea will act as his fiancee for six weeks. Thea agrees, and this makes me wonder if Canem's help in TRAR was all a lie. It's later revealed that it's not a lie, but I still don't believe him.

And after Canem's assistance to Dare, Thea's parents are so grateful that they make it their mission to help Canem rejoin society, despite the fact that his older brother was a murderer. Thea spends a good portion of the book avoiding Canem, so there's not much interaction between the two, and that was really disappointing to me. Thea gives in to her attraction to the jerk she believes is manipulating her family, and that only gets her into a load of trouble, leading to her being set up to appear as another victim to the crazy Cave family by an old enemy of Canem's.

The last third of the book was good, but I don't think it was worth the first two-thirds. I kept reading doggedly, hoping that the character development would pick up, and spent a good chunk of that time hating Thea's slutty cousin Maddy (whose actions contribute to Thea's scrape with Canem's enemy) and had no idea how such an evil and selfish little thing could have come out of the Debenham family. Ah well, there's always a black sheep.