Mastered by Love

June 15, 2009
Royce Varisey, Duke of Wolverstone and former enigmatic Bastion Club leader Dalziel, heads to Northumbria to assume his new ducal responsibilities and find a wife. But Minerva Chesterton, the estate's insightful chatelaine and woman of his choice, will only marry for love, creating a dilemma for a man who thinks he's incapable of that emotion. VERDICT Erotically specific yet emotionally touching and infinitely romantic, this electrically charged, danger-tinged romance deliciously concludes Laurens's "Bastion Club" series. Laurens ("Temptation and Surrender") lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2009
The war with Napol'on might be over, but Royce Henry Varisey still has one battle left to fight. Sixteen years earlier, when Royce announced his plans to lead a cadre of British intelligence agents, his father, the Duke of Wolverstone, banished him. Now as Royce finally returns home to call a truce, he learns that the duke has died. Arriving at Wolverstone Castle to take up his new duties, Royce discovers the castles chatelaine, Minerva Miranda Chesterton, has everything running smoothly. Minerva has even promised Royces parents that she would see him properly established and that means choosing the right wife for her old friend. What Minerva doesnt realize is that as far as Royce is concerned, that woman is Minerva. Laurens brings her Bastion Club series to a splendid conclusion with the story of the club leaders own romantic comeuppance. Composed of equal measures of sexy romance and dangerous intrigue, Mastered by Love is irresistible.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)