I've been on a delightful Gaelen Foley binge for the last couple of weeks, but it seems the time has come for a break. Nothing about Her Only Desire particularly offended me, but my spirit animal still managed to grow increasingly bitchy with every page of text. After a book's worth of screeching and clawing at my brain, I decided that both of us - my inner spirit animal and I - need a break. So let me preface this review by boldly stating: I like Gaelen Foley's books! But this book was maybe / kind of a little stupid. At times. AT TIMES. Realize that I don't mean "stupid" like a bratty teenager saying, "Waking up early in the morning is SO STUPID." I just mean that some of the actions taken in the text are stupid, therefore permeating the entire book with more stupidness. Why the hell am I qualifying this? Moving on ...SUMMARY:Ian Prescott, Marquess of Griffith, arrives in India as a diplomat for the British government. He's been called away from his vacation in Ceylon to prevent war, but of course that all gets mucked up when he comes across Miss Georgiana Knight, a willful daughter of Ian's family friend from India's British ruling class. Something of an 18th century feminist, Georgie takes it upon herself to judge Ian's intentions for dealing with the land she calls home. Naturally, she does this by not listening to a word the poor man says even though he's a skilled diplomat who has prevented war many times before and taking serious international matters into her own inexperienced hands. Georgie's reckless behavior ends up getting the entire Knight family in big trouble, so she's shipped to England where there's nothing else to do but explore her budding flirtation with Ian. But Ian has secrets that can apparently steamroll their romance even faster than Georgie can cause a war. Will they grow to trust each other in the spirit of true love, or will these two crazy people screw their lives up forever?THE GOOD THINGS:Foley's always dependable to provide some murderous intrigue to the plot. In this case, a jealous and spiteful maharani plots to have her husband the maharaja killed. When Georgie fucks up all her plans, she sends an assassin back to England to take out revenge on Ian and troops after the Knight family to kill them. Sadly, this fun-filled vengeance plot ends way too soon for my taste, but I'll give it credit for existing in the first place. Georgie actually gets smarter as the story progresses. Most heroines get dumber as the plot thickens, but not Georgie. She takes responsibility for her silly actions and doesn't tolerate much of Ian's bullshit. Her wild sense of independence is honed into a reasoned sense of self-preservation, and she managed to become my favorite character after starting off as one of the worst characters EVER. Hats off to you, Foley, for creating a nuanced and well-developed female protagonist. THE STUPID THINGS:Georgie's Modern Sensibilities: It's very nice that she believes in female autonomy and resents the way that women are basically owned by men in her society. But there's one itty-bitty problem with her line of thought: IT DIDN'T EXIST IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY. Georgie's feminist philosophy of "I don't want to marry a man because then he'll OWN me and tell me what to do" wasn't a thing at this point in history. I wish that history told a different story, but it doesn't. There's no way a young woman of Georgie's social class could live basically unchaperoned in India while her brothers traveled with the military and her father went to sea. There's no way these brothers would allow her to show up and stay unannounced at a MAHARAJA'S PALACE at the freaking brink of war. There's also no way that a cultured gentleman like Ian would easily forgive the little idiot for interfering with his negotiations by illegally breaking into the maharani's private quarters to gather information - even though she has no experience as a spy - and getting caught red-handed. That's just too much stupid for people of that time to tolerate. Georgie's lucky they didn't lock her up somewhere. And then there's the way that Georgie treated her asthma with modern yoga. [image error]
The action of this book opens in India with our heroine, Georgiana Knight, rushing in where angels fear to tread in order to save an Indian friend from a bride-burning. She is rescued by English diplomat Ian Prescott, the Marguess of Griffith. The absurdity continues from there into a weak and unbelievable plot that includes Georgiana arriving on the back of an elephant to visit an Indian king, the murder of an Indian prince, a triumphant return to England, and the kidnapping of the Marquess' son. The point of the plot? I'm really not quite sure. It's complicated, convuluted, and honestly not terribly interesting.The love story also is incredibly weak. Georgiana is a completely unbelievable character (she would fit in better in NOW than in the 19th century) and Ian is the dime-a-dozen cardbord cutout tortured romantic hero with a dark past. We are not shown the love story, we are told that it happens - as unbelievable that it might be that Ian is attracted to this supremely annoying girl. There is no emotional involvement with the characters (at least not for me), the characters speak as if it took place in 20th century America, and even that is stilted and forced.Oh yeah, and I don't have a clue where the title came from. Huh?Don't waste your time.
What do You think about Her Only Desire (2007)?
I really enjoyed Georgiana and Ian's story. Ian intrigued me back in the first few Knight miscellany books. Quite a good man. My kind of hero. And Georgiana grabbed my attention back in His Wicked Kiss when she was mentioned and then became one of my favorite heroines. I enjoyed her no nonsense approach, solidity and strength. She definitely deserved an equal in her husband and deserved to be treated as an equal as well. Her approach to life helped her not be so dramatic with her relationship. I dislike a heroine that is flighty and can't make up her mind whether to stay or go. It was clear that Georgiana wanted to stay and that's the love Ian needed...sigh...great story.
—Kristie Gossman
I wish I had remembered to read my "Don't Read" list before I had ordered all three of this Trilogy. Normally, I like Gaelen Foley stories, but not this one. These stories are connected to The Knight Family books whichd I liked. To me these characters had no depth and were at times silly. The text was stilted and uninspiring almost sophomoric. I started to read this book several years ago and put it down because I wasn't interested in Indian culture or history. Ms. Foley seemed more interested in educating the reader in those fields with the H/H's story taking second place. Since I have the books, I will finish the series at some point. The next two are about this heroine's brothers. Maybe they will have better stories. They are in England now so I am hoping they will stay there and not go back to England.
—Lynne Tull
Hmmmm, were should I start??...Well I've read this for quite some time already so I'd probably missed "a-lot" of things here but nevertheless, I will never forget on how AWESOME this book is.It started as enchanting as the other Knight books is, enchanting and beguiling as ever! but in the middle part, I thought I was lost, like where did my Gail go??so I decided to put it down..days,weeks,it was just their like I've lost my mind, but when I picked it up again,DAMN!!Why did I put it away anyway??And here were the sweeping started!Just as much as I love the Knight Miscellany is, Her Only Desire,first in the Spice Trilogy, is something that's wicked and I must say that Gaelen Foley's POSSESSED while writing this one!That's how great it is!So I'm definitely recommending it(as well as the other two Spice Trilogy and the rest of the Knight Miscellany books,their all awesome!) for everyone who wants adventure,thrill and most of all, experience the magic of love!!!
—Kyle Nicole
