Review – Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah by Marguerite Kaye

Publisher: Harlequin
Publish Date: Jul 24th
How I got this book: ARC from the author

England, 1817
JUST WHO IS LADY DEBORAH?
I am the Dowager Countess of Kinsail, and I have enough secrets to scandalise you for life.
I will never reveal the truth of my soul-destroying marriage – some things are too dark to be told. But at least no one can guess that I, a famously icy-hearted widow, am also the authoress of the shamelessly voluptuous romances currently shocking the ton…!
Only now I have a new secret identity, one that I will risk my life to keep – accomplice to Elliot Marchmont, gentleman, ex-solider and notorious London thief. This adventurer’s expert touch ignites in me a passion so intoxicating that surviving our blistering affair unscathed will be near impossible…
This blurb came from the author’s website here.

I read and enjoyed Rake With a Frozen Heart by Marguerite Kaye a few months ago. As a result when I received an e-mail from Ms Kaye asking if I would consider reviewing her newest Historical Romance Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah and included a link to an excerpt on her website I had to take a look. After reading and really enjoying the excerpt I decided that I would give the rest of the book a try. I did have a few quibbles but I found it to be an interesting entertaining read.

The heroine is a widow who writes a series of rather erotic tales about a woman who takes what she wants, indulges in all sorts of adventures, and also controls not just her sexuality but that of her male partners. In short her main character is exactly the opposite of Lady Deborah and her life to date. Then she has a chance meeting with a rather peculiar housebreaker, Elliot Marchmont, and then the fun begins. Deborah was a very complex woman who secretly wished she was as daring and confident as the heroine that she writes. Her wish is to be able to live independently of the annuity she received from the estates of her deceased husband so she could be free of her unpleasant memories of their time together. After meeting Elliot for the second time she realized that she starts to feel alive around him. Between that and an editorial comment made by her publisher on her last manuscript, Deborah decides that she needs Elliot to take her on one of his housebreaking trips. The mental struggle between Deborah’s intense attraction to Elliot and her memories and feelings about the utter failure of her married sexual life were almost heartbreaking. It was like seeing someone who had been abused for years relaxing and then encountering a trigger. Even with that I did find her back and forthing tiresome after a while because she didn’t seem to show mental growth in that direction. Deborah did redeem herself at the end and I loved how she went about doing it. Deborah had to decide in the end what she was going to do with her talent for writing, if she was going to let her deceased husband and his odious family run the rest of her life, or if she was going to actually live life.

Elliot was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed his relationship with his sister and brother-in-law. I thought he was extremely patient and determined when it came to working with Deborah. While bewildered and concerned about Deborah’s swings between intimacy and stark rejection he didn’t take his frustrations out on her, which I found to be pretty wonderful. He decided that she was the one and did what he could to make that a reality. As I discovered along with Deborah why he chose his targets it made him such a deeper character. Then seeing how he was treated at the former hospital by the staff and occupants my heart just melted. ***part of that might be due to my real life occupation*** I also have to say that his actions when he tries to convince Deborah that he loves and wants to marry her were certainly enough to make me tear up. Then when he had to courage to leave knowing that she had to decide what was going to happen next all I could think of is how much that showed the depths of his love for her.

Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah took bits of some of my favorite story elements; Robin Hood, The Pink Panther, Suddenly You and combined them with two wounded lead characters. Their growth separately and together was good to watch. While I did get annoyed as some of Deborah’s mental anguish as I mentioned earlier and thought that Elliot should have been a bit more upset with her actions sometimes, not just her hot/cold, but in her profession as a writer I enjoyed reading it. I also enjoyed the mental musings of Deborah’s publisher as he came to terms with what she wrote and also his wife’s opinion of what she wrote. He gave me several good laughs.

I give Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah a B-

Links to purchase
Amazon | Kindle (not available until 1 Aug in digital format)