Heart's Desire by Cheryl Holt
Also by this author: Heart's Delight
Published by Independently Published on June 25, 2015
Genres: Regency, Historical, Romance
Pages: 351
Format: eBook
ASIN: B010GKWSXK
Goodreads

CHERYL HOLT continues to dazzle readers with the second book in her new trilogy, The Lost Lords of Radcliffe…

MATTHEW HARLOW is England’s hero. After almost single-handedly rescuing passengers from a foundering ship—including a trio of royal cousins—he’s being lauded throughout the kingdom. But at heart, he’s just a soldier, a captain in the King’s army, and he finds the spotlight a great nuisance. Yet he’s dashing and dynamic, a natural leader of men, and heroics rest well on his broad shoulders. As an orphan, with no memory of his parents or past, he often wonders where he came by his penchant for fearlessness and daring. What is to account for his extraordinary courage and valor?

CLARISSA MERRICK is a poor relative and spinster who lives with her cruel cousins at their bucolic Greystone estate. Even in her small corner of rural England, everyone has heard of brave, remarkable Captain Harlow. When he arrives at Greystone, he shoots through her world like a blazing comet, and nothing will ever be the same. Who is Matthew Harlow? What is his true history? How could a lowly orphan be possessed of such a forceful character and potent charisma? Can Clarissa help him find answers to the mystery that has plagued him all his life?

Cheryl Holt delivers another dramatic story of love, family, heartbreak, and betrayal. As the truth about the “lost” lords is gradually revealed, readers will be breathlessly turning the pages and cheering all the way to the stunning, thrilling conclusion…

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~Karen’s Two Cents~

I can’t abide a cheater! Once the hero has met the heroine all ‘other’ dalliances are off the table, but not in Heart’s Desire by Cheryl Holt, which is book two of The Lost Lords of Radcliffe.

“Did you have carnal relations?’

“No,” he scoffed, and it was mostly the truth. It all depended on what a person would consider carnal.

With this statement, Matthew slide down into the muck of cheaters.  Let’s not split hairs, Captain! If you touch another intimately then it is carnal! He had come to London and hurt his wife.  He was a Captain, a commander of men, for him to just not foresee consequences, makes me think he was horrid commanding officer in the army.

As book one of The Lords of Radcliffe, had Matthew’s brother Micheal treating his lady love as a paid whore.  It wasn’t even the modern dialect, or the fact the time period was never fleshed out that made me scream, it was the horrid way that the hero treats a woman he pretty much forces into marriage.  Let’s take her to London and rub her nose in that I have a mistress.  Then she will forgive me and we will ride off into the sunset together after I have ‘cheated’ on her with my mistress, even if it is cheating by omission. When there misunderstanding in the marriage Clarissa his wife is a silly goose, and nothing is ever his fault.

The secondary romance between Edwina Edwards and Private Rafe Harlow has a unsatifyinh ending.  Both Harlow brothers were asses and users, they saw woman as chattel to be used and discarded.  Plus the attitude in this book and the previous one that the heroes never listen to woman is just so condescending at best, I don’t know why any woman would want to sleep with any Harlow or Blair male.

Now to the writing of Holt’s, she does write a very engaging tale; but the fact that she has written the book as historical romance and riddles the text with language that is not period, makes me wonder why she does not just is change the setting to contemporary romance.  Why write historical if you aren’t going to attempt to fit into the genre.

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