The Window Seat on a Rainy Day

When I pick up a romance book I want to be swept away by the characters the author has created. What I don’t want is an impression that the author must have been writing with a checklist next to her laptop of all the tropes necessary for a successful Historical romance. Unfortunately, as I read Stefanie Sloane’s book The Devil in Disguise I was less captivated by the hero and heroine’s struggles to find happiness and more anticipating when the next familiar scenario would play out.

Lady Lucinda Grey is viewed by the ton as a strong willed woman who is comfortable in her spinsterhood. When we first meet Lucinda she is fending off the advances of the latest in a string of suitors foisted upon her by her recently married best friend. While Lucinda seems to acknowledge that her friend’s intentions are good, she herself has no need to enter the marriage mart or settle down. Lucinda has convinced herself that love, the type that poets and playwrights seem to espouse, does not exist. Never mind that this same best friend has recently fallen head over heels in love. It just isn’t something that will ever happen to Lucinda. She was the sole beneficiary of her parent’s un-entailed estate, so most of the men seeking her hand are of the fortune-hunter variety. And she has seen the effects of an unsuccessful marriage in two of her widowed aunts. Instead of looking for a good ton marriage Lucinda has partnered with her aunts, known in town as The Furies, to start a successful horse-breeding program with the linchpin to this program a stallion known as King Solomon’s Mine.

For the full review, please go to http://thewindowseat13.blogspot.com/2012/05/stefanie-sloane-devil-in-disguise.html