Sensible, shy, overlooked Rose Golightly never expected to realize that she had met the man of her dreams while he was lying half dead on the side of the road in her arms. However, the man, whose head lay on her lap as she tried to stop the bleeding from his wound, was lucky. He would live. The destroyed coach had been carrying 3 peers of the realm, and 2 perished in the accident.

However, was it an accident, or murder? How did this start….

Rose and her family have traveled to attend the marriage of her cousin, The Honourable Edward Golightly, to the only daughter of the Earl of Hareton. Shocked at the condition of the once renowned show house of the county, Rose, her brother James, who was third in line for the Earl title, and their sister Lizzy all stood outside of the former glorious mansion. Whatever could have happened?    While standing staring at the horror in front of them, another coach pulled up discharging two handsome men and  a lady who joined them in staring at the disaster in front of them. The newest arrivals were Lord Strang, his twin brother Gervase, and Miss Cartwright, Lord Strang’s affianced bride.

On their first morning the Earl and his son were killed in a carriage accident, leaving Rose the sister of an Earl. However it quickly became known that the “carriage accident” was not an accident. The bindings had been cut, and the carriage was deliberately crashed in hopes of killing the occupants. Lord Strang survived the terrible accident, but only barely, thanks to Rose’s care of him. If Rose had not been present, Lord Strang would have bled to death. When she had held him in her arms she had felt overcome with a deep feeling of  caring and passion for the man lying in her arms.

Who wanted to kill the Earl and his heir?

This is the first book in a series written by the esteemed Lynn Connolly. This story is very British with an Agatha Christie type murder mystery, but with sex:>). I have been waiting years to find stories as fabulous, scary, and sexy as this one with a really excellent mystery in which people are taken out of their personal comfort zones and have to survive in a strange new environment that has suddenly become theirs through tragedy. The suspense never lets up, and everyone involved in the mystery is interesting and well rounded characters. This is an amazing story. The late great Agatha Christie could not have written this any better than Lynn Connolly. This is the first story in a series, and I cannot wait to see what Rose and Richard get themselves involved with in the next book. Congratulations, Ms. Connolly, you have created an intriguing group of people that readers will care about and will look forward to reading about in the next book full of sexy new adventures, as will I.

Filed Under: December 2008 Reviews Samhain Publishing	About the Book: Genre: historical ISBN: 978-1-60504-269-5 Page Count: novel length Price: $ 2.25 Reviewer: Susiq2
	Sensuality Rating: Sensuous Star Rating: 4.5 Stars