Pretty good, but the title is not appropriate. Gorgeous eligible duke is assigned to protect gorgeous eligible titled miss from a French plot. Suspense, romance, danger ensue.Male romantic lead: Duke of Claremont, leader of Young Corinthian spies,must protect Lady Lucinda from French plot, by his physical presence, so he pretends to court her.Female lead: Lady Lucinda Grey,wealthy and unattached female, turning down all suitors, in favor of horse breeding with her aunts, allows Claremont's courtship for a chance to win his prize stallion.Other characters of note: The Furies, otherwise known as the three aunts, all widowed, very protective of their niece. Quirkiness: Lots of horse talk, everyone is into breeding horses and racing. Reviewed by: JenBook provided by: Contest winReview originally posted at Romancing the BookReview: So this book is Stefanie Sloane’s debut and also the start of her Regency Rogues series featuring a bunch of English spies. Since I’m a huge fan of Regency romance and series, this book should have been right up my alley. But I think it fell a little short for me, but all in all a solid debut.Will and Lucinda aren’t your typical Regency leading players. Will is more interested in his spy work than his role as a Duke in English society. And Lucinda, a wealthy woman in her own right also doesn’t particularly care for society and really just wants to concentrate on her horse breeding program. But when Lucinda’s life in threatened, Will is assigned to protect her… and what better way than to court her. Of course, Lucinda doesn’t want to be courted so Will basically bribes her with his prized horse. OK… I’m on board. Seems like a pretty solid and interesting plot up to this point.But then we are introduced to the evil villain, Garenne (or is it Garrene or Gareene? Unfortunately all these spellings were used in the book). I didn’t care for him as the bad guy. His motives and well, just him, were unbelievable. Then when it came to wrapping up the story, it was too short and neat to be satisfying.And speaking of satisfying, the romance was on the light side. Don’t get me wrong, we know Will and Lucinda are falling for each other, but really all you get is the tension and never the payoff which is expected in romance novels these days. And when we do get to “the payoff”, the scenes don’t flow and left me unsatisfied. I’d rather the action have stayed behind closed doors than to have it be lackluster.So, I liked the basic plot and most of the characters, but what really pushed my buttons was the errors in story. The editing was horrible in places. I mean, come on, how did “riding havit” or “Hrace” slip through spell check? And as I pointed out earlier, the villain’s name was misspelled several times. These aren’t things you’d expect to see from a major publishing house and the editor in me cringed each time I came across one.The book had potential, but ended up being just a middle of the road read for me. I am curious enough about the series and Ms Sloane as an author to move on to the next book in the series.
What do You think about The Devil In Disguise (2011)?
Loved this book!!!! Kept my interest through out the whole book!! Good romance scenes too!!!
—leoncitosordie
cute book, very quick read. enjoyed it very much. very similar to amanda quick books. h
—sophia
I enjoyed THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE, and I'll read more books by Stefanie Sloane.
—dumplin
I didn't really read it all the way through. Didn't really connect to it.
—cposey
2012 RITA finalist in Best First Book and Regency Historical categories.
—Nick
