Reviewed by: The Long and Short Reviews

Rating: 3 Books

Lord Deveraux’s Lady is a story of a young woman from nowhere determined on going somewhere and ends up in a place she never expected. It’s the story of a man who has everything but realizes he has nothing, almost too late.

The heroine is Cassie and right off the bat we are introduced to a woman facing overwhelming and dire odds. She has to follow her intuition and her heart to escape from a calamity sure to destroy all that she is. Cassie finds herself at the right place but at the wrong time and has to grab for the brass ring, no matter that it will eventually put her in an untenable position. Her character is a mix of courage, naiveté and hope.

The author’s descriptions of Cassie’s country ways versus London’s ways were well written and, at times, humorous.

The hero, Devereaux Bellanger was a bit harder to pin down. He’s a rake and proud of it with none of the urges to change or settle down or to be anything other than what he is. He’s a man who always gets what he wants easily and without much effort. The choice he made put him on the spot when he made the ‘My Fair Lady” agreement to change a mouse to a swan. A man seems to always want what he cannot have, even if he did it to himself. The internal conflict is borne through much of the story and I found him to be ambivalent to any change of heart. Indeed at times, I felt that Dev needed to be whacked aside the head. Thank goodness for secondary characters.

Connor is Dev’s best friend and I liked him a whole lot. Connor is instrumental in Cassie’s transformation. In fact, he was well rounded enough for me to want him to get his own HEA someday. Add in Dev’s mother and a few of the servants and the story has a wealth of interaction to draw upon.

Lord Deveraux’s Lady is a romantic tale of two people growing in emotional depth. Of a man realizing that the best thing is right in front of him and of a woman willing to embrace altering her appearance to change and capture the heart of a man. You see, some men come to the altar floating on air, some are dragged kicking and screaming and some need that carrot on a stick for the stubborn mules they can be. Cassie Harcourt is one irresistible carrot.