Stranger in My Arms

June 29, 1998
Lara, Lady Hawksworth, is sure her husband died in a shipwreck off the south Indian coast, but three years later someone answering to the name of Hunter, Lord Hawksworth, reappears. He's accepted by everyone save his uncle, who'd claimed the earldom in his absence, and Lara, who had hated being married to him. How Hunter wins Lara with his exquisite lovemaking and becomes a better husband than the man who left her is the heart of this sweetly sensual, character-driven Regency historical. Kleypas (Because You're Mine) doesn't give a lot of description so the prose sometimes clunks when she shoehorns facts (e.g., Lara's contemplation of a particularly popular shade of house paint) into her narrative and some phrases jar ("this springy, lean animality"). But for the most part her prose flows well, her dialogue is thankfully natural and she's again shown herself to be a cut above most in this popular genre.