Although the story started out slowly, it picked up after the first rather lengthy chapter of introduction. Both Colton and Lady Adriana are charismatic and the dialogue between them is witty and fun to follow, and continues to hold the reader's interest until they get married. Colton is a fine hero, his prideful struggle over an edict not of his choosing and the fact that he cares for the girl anyway is realistic and understandable, although his predilection for looking down women's dresses at inappropriate times was a bit much. Lady Adriana's name suits her, as she's a paragon amongst some rather conniving society misses. Although Woodiwiss spends the time to develop Adriana's character early on with examples of her good works with orphans, small animals and servants, as well as her fear of small spaces and love of riding stallions, the heroine seems to become quite one-dimensional after the wedding. Post-wedding bliss having left the main characters in something of a stupor, the machinations of the secondary characters seemed to take over the plot for the rest of the novel. Woodiwiss was able to develop many of the secondary characters, each with their own agendas. Some were likeable and others utterly disgusting, but Woodiwiss succeeded in weaving a primary plotline that was quite lengthy (580p), with many twists and turns. The story details were well researched - from the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars to medicinal knowledge of gangrene and various poisons. Woodiwiss's writing style is lavish, and occassionally over the top - either mimicking Shakespeare in her character's dialog, or overusing words like manly and orbs. Interestingly though, this is one of those stories where nothing ever happens without reason - each occurence, subplot, and character introduced has a reason to be there, and furthers the complex plot which Woodiwiss has pieced together quite admirably.

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