Kathleen Lawless, Unmasked

Unmasked

Kathleen Lawless

Pocket, Aug 2004, $12.00, 194 pp.

ISBN: 0743476743

In 1899, grand adventuress Aurora Tremblay rides an air balloon so that she can breech the estate of wealthy Grayson Thorne, who has ignored her attempts to make an appointment with him. However, when the wind sends her balloon away, Aurora is forced to rely on the hospitality of her host who insists he has no one available to take her back to San Francisco. Besides which she knows the opportunity is now to obtain her desires from him, the San Francisco's Gaslight Theater which she wants to have.

She was unprepared for the private debauchery party that was taking place on his remote estate. Even more wild is her reaction to Grayson, who seems to know her innermost fantasies and, more than capable, he carries them out. Soon Aurora and Grayson fall in love, but who will venture first to admit that this is more than just bodies perfectly melding into one; it's a lifetime together carried by the wind everywhere they go.

UNMASKED is a fine erotic historical romance starring two nice protagonists who readers will like although both come across as the depraved idle rich with too much time on their hands, which is the power of Kathleen Lawless' interesting tale. The author's skills lead fans to root for this duet to realize they belong together not just in the boudoir, but also following the wind wherever it takes them just like angels in the wind. In many ways fans will admire the courage of the couple for doing what many folks fantasize doing, but consider a guilty TABOO.

Harriet Klausner