The story goes like this: Elizabeth Montgomery, recently made an orphan by a tragic carriage accident in which both her parents were killed, is thrust into the realities of a world short on respect for a young woman trying to make it on her own. She is at the mercy of men everywhere she goes. As an extraordinarily beautiful lady, every man in her presence is unable to ignore her physical charms. So it is that at almost her first attempt to carry on without protection of parents or other family, she falls prey to her own innocence, beauty, and the lust of men of all ages and stations. If not for the intervention of one knock-down gorgeous and mysterious stranger, that initial effort may have been her last.

“Who was that dark man?” she asks of the innkeeper from whom she had come to collect the rent.

“Why, don’t you know?” he responds, as if she were an addled child. “That was Benjamin Ascott Elliott.”

Here’s the rub. Benjamin has a twin brother by the name of Franklin. Benjamin is the good guy; Franklin is the rogue. Both are very handsome; indeed, they’re identical . . . except for one very important . . . ah . . .physical trait. For Benjamin, it’s an attribute. For Franklin, poor boy, it’s something for which he must constantly compensate. Elizabeth, married to Benjamin very early in the story to save her good graces after being deflowered by Franklin, spends the rest of the book bounced back and forth between the brothers, for reasons not of her own doing, and in her mind, she finds that she's never able to settle her feelings for either.

This is a true romp, in something of the old-fashioned Rosemary Rogers-type romance. I appreciated the humor and the sheer amount of romance novel elements that Ms. Flame was able to include in a medium-length novel. Yet I was taken aback, time and time again, by many “asides” that, if included in a modern-day comedy of the “Airplane” movie series sort, would’ve been brilliant. In a historical novel, however, satire or otherwise, they were very distracting. In a story set in the 1800s, we have references to the Three Stooges, a Ping Pong paddle, a grinning German Shepherd, and legendary guitarist, Duane Eddy.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, if you’re aware from the get-go that you’re not to take much of anything serious in this book, you’ll probably enjoy the wild ride. If you want to lose yourself in an old-fashioned bodice ripper, you might want to look elsewhere. The publisher’s page states that this book is “spicy.” Because of many of the scenarios included, I would say it was explicit.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Explicit

Reviewer: Linda Alexander
November 4, 2003