A Hint of Wicked

April 13, 2009
Two devastatingly handsome gentlemen vie for the love of the beautiful Sophie, duchess of Calton, in this debut historical romance, which delivers almost too thoroughly on its heart-tearing premise. Garrett, duke of Calton, returns to England barely recovered from amnesia following the battle of Waterloo and finds that after thinking him dead for eight years, Sophie has married his cousin and best friend, Tristan, now duke in his place. Sophie is torn between her sensual attraction to Tristan and her childhood love for—and legal bond to—Garrett, while the rivalry wrecks the men's lifelong friendship and pulls Sophie's two young children between their warring fathers. Haymore portrays the three so intensely and sympathetically that by the end, all of Sophie's possible choices seem guaranteed to bring misery to the lovers, leaving readers distressed and unsatisfied.