Elizabeth Thornton, The Marriage Trap

The Marriage Trap

Elizabeth Thornton

Bantam, Jul 2005, $6.99

ISBN: 0553587536

Six months since Waterloo and the English are flocking to Paris. A vicar's daughter, Ellie Brans-Hill is in the city as a companion to the daughter of the Sedgewicks. There she sees Jack for the first time in fifteen years when he was a teen exiled into rusticating for his pranks at her late father's vicarage; to her chagrin she remains mesmerized by him as she did then though the former soldier and now Lord Raleigh fails to recognize her.

To have some fun, Ellie masquerades as Aurora the gambler. He rescues her from a brawl and soon shares a passionate kiss. Not long afterward she is accused of theft; Jack is her alibi which means revealing he compromised her. Forced to marry over her trepidation because she knows she loves her Jack and she believes he does not reciprocate, they soon become entrenched in a murder investigation seeking a killer who threatens Ellie and her brother.

Though the premise has been used in varying degrees by the sub-genre authors, this Regency is a fresh look at the compromised scenario as Jack is the alibi that keeps her out of prison but traps him in marriage. The storyline is action packed as the couple begins to know one another while falling in love but at the same time are seeking to uncover a deadly criminal wanting to kill Ellie. She is a courageous but very serious individual while he wants to kick back and celebrate the end of the war, but when his beloved is stalked he turns somber as no one knows Jack when it comes to protecting his.

Harriet Klausner