Why Earls Fall in Love
By
Manda Collins
Publisher:
St. Martin’s
Release
Date:
January 28, 2014
The second book in Manda Collins’s
Wicked Widows trilogy continues the mystery of the threats Isabella, the
current Duchess of Ormond; Perdita, the young dowager Duchess of Ormond, and
Georgina Mowbray are receiving concerning their roles in the death of the
abusive Duke of Ormond. In the first
book, Why Dukes Say I Do, Isabella is
the target of the self-appointed avenger’s death. In the second book, his--or
her--attention turns to Georgina.
Georgina Mowbray is finding her new
position as companion to the aging but lively Lady Russell surprisingly
pleasant until Lady Russell summons her extended family to Bath to celebrate
her seventieth birthday. Among the relatives who gather is Lady Russell’s
favorite nephew, Dominic, Earl of Coniston, familiarly known as Con. Georgina
met Con when he was betrothed to her friend Perdita, then the widowed Duchess of
Ormond, and despite his obvious charm and good looks, she didn’t think highly
of him. He reminded her too much of the spoiled young officers she knew as a
military wife. Her opinion of him has not changed.
Con is skilled at reading people’s
reactions, and he knows full well that Georgina is unimpressed with him. He
confronts her directly, asking if he has done something to offend her. His
openness is the first thing that has Georgina questioning her own conclusions
about him. For his part, everything Con learns about Georgina just intensifies
his attraction to her. Her understated beauty, her independence, and her
essential goodness are all part of her growing appeal for him. When he realizes
that Georgie is in danger, he is determined to use all his resources to protect
her and to find the mysterious man who is tormenting her.
Georgie’s experience with her late
husband makes her reluctant to trust any man. Even after she recognizes that
Con is very different from the brute she married, she is slow to take him
completely into her confidence. Gradually he wins her trust and her love, but
she remains troubled by the social gulf that exists between the daughter of one
army officer and the wife of another and a wealthy earl. Can Con both defeat an
unknown enemy and overcome Georgie’s reservations to win the woman who has won
his heart and his respect?
Collins, who promises her readers “romance
spiced with mystery,” has upped the stakes and the tension of the mystery
element in Why Earls Fall in Love,
and she manages to do so without sacrificing the centrality of the romance. In
Georgina and Con, Collins creates likeable protagonists whose choices preserve
the integrity of their characters. Georgina grew up with her father away with
his military duties much of the time, a pattern that was repeated with her
husband. She is accustomed to making decisions unaided, to taking action when
necessary, and to taking care of herself. This is the character the reader
encounters the evening of the duke’s death, and her character remains
consistent through both novels. Even as she takes comfort in Con’s care for her,
she insists on her autonomy. I can’t say
much about the denouement without including spoilers, so I’ll just say that I
was elated that Georgie stayed true to herself all the way.
Con is a charmer, not in the pejorative
sense of a shallow person who uses his personal attractiveness to use and
manipulate people but in the sense of a person blessed with qualities that effortlessly
win the liking and admiration of others. His charm plus his wealth and social
position have made him a man conditioned to being in control. Because he is a man
of compassion and honesty, his control is benevolent. But it is not easy for
him to accept Georgie’s right to make decisions even when he feels they
endanger her. The tension that exists between his belief that he knows best and
his respect for Georgie as an independent spirit not only made him more real to
me but also allowed me to believe fully in his declaration of love for a woman
very different from him in social status and in personality.
Sometimes suspending disbelief for the
course of a novel is more than I can do, but I found it easy to enter fully
into the world of this book. I believed in Georgie and Con as individuals, and
I believed in them as a couple who could build a happy life together. I also
believed that the threat to Georgie was real, and the killer’s identity caught
me by surprise. So did the number of victims.
I loved the big things about this book—characters
in whom I was invested, a plot that kept me turning pages (and buying into the
red herrings), historical accuracy in setting, action, and the role of women,
and an authorial voice in which I delighted. I also loved the little things—Con’s
bad art, the nod to the Ugly Ducklings from Collins’s first series, and the
affection and loyalty between Georgie and Perdita, and Isabella. I’ve been falling in love with Manda Collins’s
stories since before she was published, and I think this one may be her best
yet. I highly recommend it.
Do
you like your historical romance mixed with mystery? How do you feel about mystery threads that run
through several books?
