HIDE AND SEEK

Author: Sandra Wilson ISBN: 9780709083795 8/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: ROBERT HALE LTD.
Time Period: Regency

Lovely Annabel Gresham is worried about her financial future - and she has good reason to be. The codicil to her grandfather's will and her own father's recently altered will have been stolen. If the missing documents don't turn up post-haste, her rapacious half brother, Roderick, will inherit the family fortune and Annie will be left penniless. Rumour has it that Roderick's best friend made off with the documents—and hid them in a bawdy house somewhere in London. Annie's determined to find them—that is, when she isn't distracted by Richard Tregerran, the devilishly handsome, rakishly charming man she encounters at every turn. Annie had heard of his bad reputation and suspects that his morals are downright despicable. But he just might prove invaluable in this high-stakes game of hide and seek...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

HIDE AND SEEK starts out on an ominous note—in a dying man's bedchamber as he pens his last will and testament—but it, thankfully, takes a lighter tone within a few short pages.

Annabel and her father, a crafty, crusty old man, are intent on outfoxing her half-brother. Roderick looks respectable enough on the surface, but beneath the veneer he's despicable through and through. Sandra Wilson pens a tale of intrigue and deception that kept me guessing. I had no clue just how smarmy some of these characters were. Or, for that matter, how good others were. The best part is that I didn't guess what was behind the half-brother's greedy nature. Fortunately for Annabel she's got accomplices who help her get to the bottom of the scheme to leave her without anything. Even more fortuitous is the fact that one of her "helpers" has his own reasons for being so kind to her.

Not an average, ball gowns-and-fluttering-fans story, HIDE AND SEEK makes the point that even in the best houses there are shady areas. And, while things in England in 1800 may have been refined, they weren't all above reproach. Well done!

Kay James