Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: The Veil Of Night
Author: Lydia Joyce
Publisher: Signet Eclipse
ISBN: 0-451-21483-8
Release Date: April 2005
Genre/Sub-genre: Historical Romance
Year/Setting: England, 1864
Overall rating: 4.0
Sexual content rating: Sensual/Sexual
Lydia's Website:
www.lydiajoyce.com
Lady Victoria Wakefield is living a life of quiet desperation and isn’t even aware of it. She is living in mourning clothes for a fiancée who died much too young. In spite of his passing years prior, she has continued in this life and separated herself from the world in order to avoid being hurt or making mistakes in relationships again. Her brother, however, embraces the world and makes costly mistakes.
He has just made yet another one and this time he implores his sister to help him. He owes a great deal of money to Byron Stratford, Duke of Raeburn and begs his sister to go to the Duke and beg for mercy for him. Because she does not wish to see the family name besmirched, Victoria agrees to do so.
Upon meeting the Duke, though, she discovers that he is hiding a great secret. This secret has made him bitter toward the world. The only way the Duke will temporarily forgive the debt is for Victoria to stay with him for one week.
This one week leads to both Victoria and the Duke discovering the secrets within themselves in addition to learning and coming to understand each other’s. Can they find truth and honesty in themselves as well as each other? Can these discoveries help them to break the pain of the worlds they have created for themselves? Can they learn to live again?
I found this creation to have great depth and the story to be very sweet. So many of us hide from the demons in our lives only to have those very same demons hold us prisoner. I found myself relating to these characters and looking inside their world of darkness through the scenes the author creates. As a debut author, Lydia Joyce shows great promise for future works.
The only down side I found with this book was that the Old English language was a slower read and required a bit more concentration than some books. I am very glad that the author wanted to stick with the time period in which she was writing but it might have been better to disperse the Old English throughout the characters dialogue and less in the descriptions.
All in all though, the additional language barriers are worth the while and the voyage. Ms. Joyce has quite a future ahead of her.
Lori
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