Melody Thomas, A Match Made In Scandal

A Match Made In Scandal

Melody Thomas

Avon, Sep 2005, $5.99, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0060742317

Four years have passed since the death of Kathleen changed her husband Ryan Donally into a womanizing angry person and her best friend Rachel Bailey into a guilt laden soul. He has become an award winning civil engineer rumored to marry soon the lady Gwyneth Abbott while Rachel fled to Ireland to perform engineering projects. Now Rachel, an engineer too, is back in London ostensibly to expand the Rathdrum project. However, she knows she is really there to plead with Ryan that she needs him to help heal her heart as she feels guilty over the horrible accusations she made when Kathleen died in childbirth. She also feels guilty that she had desired him although he was married to her best friend.

However, Ryan, who once loved the only woman who could defeat him at croquet, refuses to forgive her. Still he is unable to ignore his desire for Rachel and soon they make love as if the world is about to end. Forced to marry, their relationship though filled with blazing passion, looks doomed to failure unless each forgive her transgressions and reconcile with the past.

A MATCH MADE IN SCANDAL is a terrific Victorian romance starring two likable but remorseful individuals who have never come to grips with the death of Kathleen, a person they both cared for. The storyline is driven by the lead couple as each needs to find a way to move past their grief although four years have passed. Fans will appreciate this fine 1870s drama in which love is the only hope to bring about healing.

Harriet Klausner