The Chance

This wasn't such a bad romance, I thought there was some very nice touches to it, and was actually quite believeable as a romance. Rafe has returned from the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo, only to find that the woman he desires (Annabelle) has lost the man she desires and so he has a chance. But despite his attempts to get her attention, she seems wholly remote from him and inaccessible.

In the meantime an old friend of his returns from India ill and being nursed by his sister. It creates problems when the sister is seen in Rafe's house by Annabelle and her mother and so the gossip begins. Rafe feels honour bound to marry her to save her name and reputation.

While I found the story quite nice, I found a lot of the un Regency like language and manners somewhat grating. Most particularly the lack of mannerisms of the day - Ms Layton, I do not think, understands that women did not introduce themselves at parties, and gentlemen would not introduce themselves by their first names under any circumstances. An aspiring mother would never insist on seeing a bachelors house - even though this woman was supposed to be vulgar, no one would be that vulgar.

The most glaring fault in this was the plot device of removing all the help from his home in order for the woman and her brother to visit. That would mean so many things - lack of fires, no hot water, no meals, no refrigeration, no laundry, and so on. She failed, it seemed to me, to take this in during her writing.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I very much look forward to reading the follow on from this, I feel that Annabelle and Drummound must somehow be united, it seemed to be setting itself up for this. I hope so anyway.

Not the best romance, but all right reading. A nice romance.

So much rubbish and dross is on the romantic fiction market that I can't help myself in sticking to certain authors who nearly always please. Layton, in The Chance, once again provides a well written read with believeable characters with whom the reader becomes closely involved.

This is, I suppose, in some ways meant to be a Beauty and the Beast story but it is more than that. Rafe, amongst the five rogues, is a man whose deeply troubled past moulds him into a stronger man than circumstances would indicate. The second son of a somewehat emotionally imbalanced marquess and his simply awful wife, Rafe has learnt to be self reliant. He has no high opinion of himself yet he has sterling character traits which many have overlooked though his male friends value him highly.

Brenna, the lady with whom he becomes involved by default, suffers from a damaged reputation through no fault of her own. These two less than happy people come together through circumstances which are massaged by Anabelle - the lady who lost Damon Ryder. Is she malevolent, misguided or mischievious? The jury is still out and I await Layton's denoument next year!

What I particularly liked about this book was the slow development of liking, love, passion and completion that Rafe and Brenna undergo. Each is unsure about their own merits yet each have such wonderful qualities to offer each other. A slightly bumpy path to happiness makes their journey that much more poignant. Dear red-headed Rafe, truly a product of his genes, certainly deserves the happiness that the passionate yet dutiful Brenna gives him. Well done and a good read to be savoured.

Fourth in Layton's series which began with The Cad, The Chance is Rafe's story. At the end of The Challenge, we saw that Lord Rafe Dalton was again struck by the beauty of Lady Annabelle Wythe, just as he had been in The Choice. He also feels very sorry for Annabelle, since she'd been in love with her childhood friend Damon Ryder (The Choice) for years, only to see him marry Gilly.

So Rafe decides that he will try to court Annabelle, though he doesn't have much hope that she will return his interest - after all, he tells himself, he's a very plain-looking man, with ugly red hair and a complete inability to make pretty speeches. However, Annabelle seems to show some interest, although largely playing Rafe off against several other suitors.

Then Rafe's old friend Eric returns wounded from India, needing somewhere to stay for a few days; his beautiful sister Brenna is with him. And circumstances contrive to compromise Rafe and Brenna, so that Rafe is obliged to offer Brenna marriage in order to retrieve her reputation. He likes Brenna, and is attracted to her, so it isn't such a hardship; his only problem (and hers) is that he is in love with Annabelle.

This is where the book becomes really interesting. Rafe is a very insecure, under-confident man when it comes to personal relationships; he can never quite understand why his close friends, such as Drum and Ewen Sinclair, seem to like him. And we discover that his insecurity comes from always having been second-best in his family relationships, being made to feel the outsider - which is, of course, what makes him sympathise with Annabelle.

In this respect, Rafe has more in common with Brenna than he realises, since she has also suffered more than her fair share of disappointments: one fiance was killed in the war, and another rejected her for another woman. So the really beautiful part of this book is how these two damaged individuals manage to heal each other and repair each other's self-esteem.

The reason I give this book four stars instead of the five I've given every other book in Layton's series is that I found Annabelle's behaviour profoundly annoying, and I couldn't understand why Rafe took so long to see through it. He kept finding excuses for her, long after all his friends were seeing her as the selfish dog-in-the-manger she was.

Now, I want Drum's story!

This novel makes for a very good, fun light reading. Edith Layton gives us a very well matched pair in Rafe Dalton and Brenna Ford. Forced to marry because of the malicious rumours that seemed to have swept London and Shropshire, Rafe and Brenna nonetheless step up to meet their future together with courage and good humour. A refreshing change from most plots that would have either the hero or heroine sulking for half the book while one hapless spouse soldiers on with patience! Both Rafe and Brenna are sensitive and gallant and bring out the best in each other. And reading along and seeing Rafe come realise what a gem he has in Brenna makes for very satisfying reading.

Ms Layton's greatest accomplishment in this novel however is the wonderous manner in which she has fleshed out Annabelle's character. Is she the villainess of the piece or just another misguided spoilt beauty who will no doubt find redemption in a later book? Annabelle swings between vulnerability and manipulativeness that keeps you debating this point right up till the very end of the book. Once before she felt exposed to the ton because she showed her singleminded fixation for Damon Ryder. The degree of humiliation and chagrin she felt was deep when Damon married someone else. Now she not about to become the object of pity again just because she has 'lost' Rafe to Brenna. Never mind that she was the root of all the rumours that brought their marriage about! And even though much of the humiliating scrutiny she undergoes comes about chiefly because of her manipulative and very spoilt and unpleasant behaviour, I still came away feeling a little sorry for her and hoping that there may be a book somewhere down the road where she undergoes some kind of epihany and becomes a much nicer person.

A satisfying read.

Edith Layton is one of a handful of romance writers whose work is always excellent; whenever I see her name on a book, I know I'm in for a treat. Her latest installment is no exception. She builds an interesting love triangle with believable characters, and she follows faithfully the strictures of the Regency era as to honorable behavior. She has a real feel for that period in history, and she does not attempt to "modernize" it as so many lesser writers of the genre do. It was a pleasure to encounter several characters from her previous novels and hazard a guess as to which ones will be featured in her next book. (I'm guessing the lady Annabelle, the third point of the love triangle.) If you are a fan of the Regency period and good writing in general, this is a must read.