Deep down, he wants companionship – a woman he can talk with and laugh with, someone to belong to and who belongs to him. Nights out on the tiles bore him silly and he’d much rather stay home with a good book. His friends and family scoff, finding it hard to believe that he really wants to eschew his rakish ways but he’s adamant. Robert Holkham, fourth Earl of Marcham is, at the ripe old age of thirty-six, fed-up to the back teeth with his previous dissolute lifestyle and wants to find himself a wife and settle down. Georgiana Blakelow is a twenty-nine-year-old spinster who, resigned to her single state, is focused on looking after her siblings and trying to find a way for them to remain in their family home, which their eldest brother has gambled away in a desperate attempt to win enough money to pay off their late father’s debts to their neighbor, the Earl of Marcham. It’s written very much in the style of the traditional Regency, and concentrates principally on the developing relationship between the two principals, which is characterized by witty banter, a gradually dawning affection and respect, and is possessed of a satisfying degree of emotional depth. Norma Darcy appears to be a newly published author – I can find three books to her name on Amazon – so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that The Bluestocking and the Rake is an accomplished piece of work, and certainly one of the most enjoyable books I’ve come across by a new author for quite some time.
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