VOWS OF DECEPTION

Author: Phyllis Campbell ISBN: 1897261241 2/2007 HISTORICAL Publisher: CHAMPAGNE BOOKS
Time Period: Victorian 1852

Not even lies can deceive the heart. Judith O’Neil wants to keep her freedom—and her grandmother’s estate in Scotland. But can she do both? Especially when her father demands she marry a man from England before he can give her an inheritance. Andrew Dean is tired of being the stable help, and jumps at the chance of playing Lady Judith’s pretend husband. But he didn’t plan on falling in love...or discovering a secret that had been hidden in his memory for twenty years.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

VOWS OF DECEPTION is a wild, melodramatic ride! In 1852, Lady Judith O'Neil is a feisty young woman who has almost reached her majority. Her mother died and her father remarried when she was young, and she never found her place until she moved from London to Scotland to be with her grandmother. She is looking forward to receiving her inheritance so she can help with her grandmother's debts, but then her family in London changes their mind. Lady Judith will not see her inheritance without a husband.

Our heroine asks her servants to locate a pretend husband and they find her a doozy—the strong-minded but surprisingly aristocratic stable hand, Andrew Dean. From their first meeting he is outrageous. After a few "My Fair Lady" type moments, they arrive in London, where Lady Judith's unpleasant sixteen-year-old half sister immediately falls for Andrew and begins to plot how to make him her own. Meanwhile, Lady Judith and Andrew fall in love.

This juicy, sexy book moves fast and is hard to put down. I can't say I always thought Judith and Andrew were heroic, nor did I agree with their actions, but they were certainly entertaining! I had that watching-a-train-wreck feeling for parts of the story, which of course made me keep reading. A final note is this story is Victorian-set, not a historical per se. So don't expect fidelity to historical accuracy.

Heather Hiestand