Sunday, May 4, 2014

Review: MEET THE EARL AT MIDNIGHT by Gina Conkle



Things are not necessarily as they seem in Gina Conkle’s Meet the Earl at Midnight, an atmospheric Georgian retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Who is this man who hides from the world? The gossip whispers that the Earl of Greenwich is horribly deformed, mad, or hiding something terrible. Lydia, forced into an engagement with him in order to settle her stepfather’s debts, has no choice but to find out if any, or all of these claims, is true.

From their eerie midnight meeting on, we travel along with Lydia on her sometimes frightening, sometimes humorous, voyage of discovery into the mysteries surrounding the man who will be her husband. And in the process, she discovers some uncomfortable truths about herself.

The author has done a good job of revealing bit by bit the reality behind the myths, leaving us to wonder and wonder until we can’t stand it any longer, exactly what is true and what isn’t. Lydia is no die-away heroine, but one who gives as well as she gets. The earl, although scarred, is not a monster (how could a romance hero be a monster?), although he does go out of his way to foster the illusion that he is.

Meet the Earl at Midnight is not only an engaging romance, but also a cautionary tale of how what everyone knows to be true may not be. Be careful what you believe. :)

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC supplied by Sourcebooks

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