LADY DERRING TAKES A LOVER is Julie Anne Long's next foray into historical romance. Book 1 in the Palace of Rogues series, LADY DERRING bring Long's signature touch, with scintillating banter and deeply emotional insights. Long's books always bring me to tears and make me cheer in enthusiasm, alternately. Her heroines are feminists without being militantly anachronistic. Her heroes do a great job of realizing that love trumps all obstacles and requires emotional growth. The secondary characters are well developed and flesh out the cast of characters admirably. There is not a single thing I didn't love about this book!

Lady Derring is newly widowed. Her reprobate husband was drowning in unsuspected debt, and Delilah, Lady Derring, finds she has inherited only a decrepit building in the warehouse district by the Thames from which she must wrest her financial support. Delilah goes into business with her departed spouse's newly discovered mistress (as one does), and the two ladies open a boarding house in the property. They dub it The Grand Palace on the Thames. They have the vision of creating a found family with their boarders, and the execution and results are simply delightful.

Battled-hardened Tristan Hardy tracks a smuggler to The Grand Palace, and must discover if Lady Derring is part of the crew that has killed families to protect the smuggling ring. I adore Tristan! Laconic and upstanding, he slowly comes under the spell of the upstanding Lady Derring. Despite their best intentions, their hearts and bodies slowly and deliciously become intertwined. Their banter is invigorating. Tristan's insights into the strictures society places on women are deftly provided and ring true for now just as much as for his time period. I do love a man who realizes a woman's worth. And Delilah and Tristan's sexual chemistry practically lights the pages on fire. This couple is achingly poignant, and I devoured this book to see how their romance would progress.

Fans of smartly written historical romance rejoice! Long's LADY DERRING TAKES A LOVER provides a witty yet dreamy couple who will make you sigh in happiness.

Book Summary

A mistress. A mountain of debt. A mysterious wreck of a building.

Delilah Swanpoole, Countess of Derring, learns the hard way that her husband, “Dear Dull Derring,” is a lot more interesting—and perfidious—dead than alive. It’s a devil of an inheritance, but in the grand ruins of the one building Derring left her, are the seeds of her liberation. And she vows never again to place herself at the mercy of a man.

But battle-hardened Captain Tristan Hardy is nothing if not merciless. When the charismatic naval hero tracks a notorious smuggler to a London boarding house known as the Rogue’s Palace, seducing the beautiful, blue-blooded proprietress to get his man seems like a small sacrifice.

They both believe love is a myth. But a desire beyond reason threatens to destroy the armor around their hearts. Now a shattering decision looms: Will Tristan betray his own code of honor…or choose a love that might be the truest thing he’s ever known?