USA Today Best-selling author, Jo Goodman, once again makes obvious
her consummate skill with deeply intriguing characters and fascinating plots in her latest
creation, ‘Let Me Be The One’, a profound, magnificent and sensual novel
of love & betrayal, deception & friendship. This is the first book in the Compass
Club Series.
They are four friends, all unwed,
named for the four directions of the compass. They have been friends since school and
share many secrets between themselves. They’re all also on the beck and call of
Colonel Blackwood and do odd spying jobs and investigative work for him, all in the name
of the Queen and the government. Then work takes them all to Battenburn Hall, on hunt for
the notorious and elusive Jewel thief called ‘The Gentleman Thief’ who has
stolen from countless Lords and Ladies for quite a few years, and very daringly too. Once
there, Brendan Hampton, the Earl of Northam, finds himself simultaneously mystified by and
attracted to Lady Elizabeth Penrose, daughter of the famous Earl of Rosemont. Her frank
conversation and witty observations fascinate him and her trick of seeming to reveal
everything while giving away nothing makes him wary. What's more, the nature of the
curious relationship between Elizabeth and the Baron and Baroness Battenburn keeps eluding
North. In addition there is the psychic, Madam Fortuna, who keeps appearing at odd times,
with her mysterious and sometimes dire but always accurate predictions and her unsettling
psychic connection with Northam.
Elizabeth Penrose is a lady with many
deep and dark secrets, the burden of which she has borne silently and alone for a long
time. Constant and agonizing betrayals in her past have led her to be suspicious of
everyone and she dare not expose her heart again, not even to North who stirs up feelings
inside her which she’d long thought dead. She takes great pains to keep him at arm’s
length, but this only serves to make North more interested. Circumstances take an
unexpected turn, and to save North, Elizabeth makes a surprising confession which leads to
their matrimony. However, both enter the marriage with painful...and powerful secrets that
threaten to turn deadly and destroy them both.
Sensual and suspenseful, ‘Let
Me Be The One’, is an amazing journey of secrets learned and questions answered
in the life of an extraordinary woman, Elizabeth and one man, North, who is audacious and
persistent enough to look beyond the façade to the vulnerable woman beneath. The story is
not unique but the characterization makes it stand out amid myriad others. Elizabeth’s
character is a powerful and courageous portrait of grief and guilt, deeply complex and
oddly familiar. North and his friends, with their profound and steadfast friendship, are a
joy to read. Sinister characters abound and Ms. Goodman leaves the reader confused and
eager to know all the secrets. Setting is that of Regency England, with its balls and
routs, picnics and carriage rides, secrets and desires. Overall, this is a tale brimming
with intrigue, adventure, and romance. Jo Goodman hooks you and keeps you glued to the
pages.
Reviewed by Rashmi Srinivas for The
Road to Romance
March 21, 2003
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