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Marianne Devenish has been sent away from Bath by her grandmother, and is now expected to rusticate in the country with her great-uncle acting as her guardian. A fiendish suitor, with greed and an unsavory dalliance in mind, has been pursing Marianne relentlessly - her only solution was to disappear into obscurity. However, she hadn’t expected that her great-uncle would no longer be among the living, or that his heir would be quite so young and attractive - and a bachelor in the bargain.
The Earl of Wister is surprised, to say the least, when a young lady arrives on his doorstep, expecting to find succor and shelter and for him to assume guardianship duties. Of course, the young woman does not know he is the Earl of Wister, to her he appears only as his assumed identity – the foppish dandy Sir Theodore Devenish. Sir Theodore is a totally manufactured character, and the Earl plays the part to the hilt – most of the time. Meeting Marianne has somewhat thrown him off of his game, but he still intents to ferret out the traitors who are residing among the gentry in the country.
Marianne, clever girl that she is, quickly sees through Theo’s foppish façade. Theo, for his part, realizes that Marianne is more than just a simple miss, and is, instead, a woman worthy of his affections. Circumstances being what they are, he is unable to offer her marriage until his task has been completed. In the interim, Marianne manages to get herself into quite a bit of trouble.
THE DISSEMBLER, by author Fenella-Jane Miller, is a wonderfully sweet romance. The story offers strong characters, a nicely crafted plot, an engaging storyline and a startlingly realistic setting. Both hero and heroine develop nicely throughout the story, and the romance flows comfortably along the course of the book, moving neither too quickly nor painfully slow. Although the heroine does become a bit weak near the end, stepping out of characters slightly, thankfully Ms. Miller manages to pull the loose ends together and provide a satisfyingly romantic conclusion. I highly enjoyed Ms. Miller’s dignified writing style and the refreshing sweetness of THE DISSEMBLER.
Reviewed by Janean Nusz
for The Road to Romance
April 9, 2007
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