The Conquest

Favorite scene with Alexandria-
At the party before the kidnapping.

Favorite scene with Drum-
Telling Alexandria he loves her and asks her to marry him.

Together-
The whole kidnapping and love thing.

A self-confessed admirer of Edith Layton, I wish to say only how very much I enjoyed this, the last of the 5 volume "C" series. I found it more introspective than the previous four stories with much of the book's action taking place in verbal and internal conversation. Indeed, the well done episode of the kidnapping and imprisonment of the hero, the Earl of Drummond, and the heroine, Alexandria Gascoyne, comes as somewhat of a surprise as it takes place in a novel which is largely of much internal anguish. It does, however, act as a catalyst for the hero and heroine manage to come to terms with their situations in life and, despite reluctant acknowledgement of the difficulties of turning on its head the social mores of the times, they find the courage to do so.

There is a lot about love in this novel: the earl's love for his father which is indisputably returned; the love Alexandria has for her adoptive brothers; the love a woman who made a bad match had for her husband; the love of friends for each other. There is also a well drawn background here pointing to the social strictures of the times which too often in regency fiction are ignored allowing characters to behave like modern folk in costume.

Drum, in finally getting his story told, seems to me to be the most credible, most rounded and most desirable of the "C" heros. He must, in this well crafted novel, address certain aspects of his own character and upbringing and, in largely credible way allow himself to love and be loved by a woman from an entirely different social class. How this happens is believeable and well told. This man is brilliant, kind, honest, caring and a good friend but it is, in the end, through the experience of helplessness following a serious injury, that he comes to see that love is the apsect of his life that is missing. How satisfying to see him find it with his spiritual if not social equal.

Excellent stuff and a wonderful culmination to the "C" series.

This is a perfectly competent Regency historical from Layton, one of my favorite Regency authors. It is not however her best work or even her best Regency. I will explain why.

The storyline has been summarized well by others. Those not familiar with the characters in her "C" series (five books) or who have read only one or two a long while ago (like me) will probably not be quite as charmed with the reappearance of certain characters all at once. [Let me say first that Layton is known for subtle references to her minor characters such as the Swansons in early Regencies, and that Lord Wycoff at least appears in a story A LOVE FOR ALL SEASONS in an eponymous anthology as early as 1992].

I have not read many of her historicals. And of those I have read, many have been her non-Regency historicals or her Signet Super Regencies. I am therefore judging this book solely on its own merits. There is enough backstory to understand that the Earl of Drummond, or "Drum" has several friends who are very closely-knit. This book spends a lot of time on these friends who are the secondary characters (they have or will have their own books). While this is an attraction for lovers of the entire series, also detracts somewhat from the emphasis on the romance in *this* book, per se.

The story itself was not a bad one - although it uses an old plot premise, what makes it different is the way that the plot develops and the secrets in the heroine's past.

A gentleman is seriously injured and must live in the very small home of a young lady who is the mainstay of her small family. The lady in question is the orphaned daughter of a schoolmaster (and we soon realize that she has her secrets). Why are Alexandria and her siblings so isolated? What exactly did their father do to lose a comfortable job at Eton? Is their father, the late schoolmaster, indeed their biological father? Where is Alexandria's mother? By the end of the book, these problems are solved.

Drum is a man who has been told by his father, a duke, to marry suitably. He is pondering this issue and realizing that he has never been in love when he is ambushed. His problem continues even when he realizes that he is attracted to Alexandria.

A schoolmaster's daughter is unthinkable for a duke's heir (by the way, some duke's heirs are only earls or lesser, such as the heirs to the dukes of Norfolk and Somerset, two of the oldest English dukedoms). It is even worse that Alexandria's father was a radical, a misanthrope, and a thoroughly unlikeable person with no connections to the aristocracy. It is not that no aristocrats have married beneath them in the past, but that Drum's ideas of marriages are tied to his father's ideas - and his father believes firmly in marriage within the aristocracy. Anyone who does less is a fool and makes himself ridiculous in the eyes of society. In this, Drum is actually reasonably consistent with the mindset of a typical Regency aristocrat, although this does not make him the ideal hero for a modern reader.

While Drum is recovering first at Alexandria's cottage and then in London, his father and friends are trying to discover who shot Drum and why. In the process, the father discovers an old friend who married well beneath herself. No spoilers here, but I would have liked to have seen more of their interactions because the father's actions and words at the end came as a distinct surprise and one which seemed out-of-place.

I liked this book, but I did not love it. Drum, although he had an interesting and historically correct point-of-view, was hard to sympathize with - partly because of his rigid views about marriage inherited from his father.

The focus was also mostly on the other characters, partly because of Drum's immobility, partly because not much happens from time to time. As interesting as this was, it detracted from the time that the author could show the interactions between Drum and Alexandria. And there was a long separation between hero and heroine as well.

I found the resolution of the romance a bit unsatisfying. Obviously, Drum and Alexandria are meant for each other, birth and all. But the father's changed opinion seemed rather abrupt, to put it mildly.

The intrigue element on the other hand is well-done, and not the theme not one that has been used too often. How the hero and heroine escape was very well done indeed and definitely a different touch from the usual "climb out of the window" scenario.

This is a well-written by someone who knows her period, but it was more for lovers of the entire series. It also has some problems as a romance. I suspect that THE CONQUEST will appeal more to readers who don't necessarily want the romance upfront and the couple involved with each other from the outset, and above all, readers who don't mind a slow read with lots of secondary characters who take up considerable space. Not being a conventional reader, I don't mind such a book, but other readers might have problems (please note my ratings breakdown below). By the conventions of the romance genre, THE CONQUEST is a flawed romance.

Rated = 3.8 (B)
Breakdown = romance element graded at 2.7 (C-; 25%), writing at 4.5 (A-; 25%), characterization (of protagonists and secondary characters) at 3.8 (B; 25%), plot development at 4.5 (A-; 25%).

Recommended = with mild reservations

Why are all Edith Layton's heroines from the lower classes and the heros from the nobility? I was so impressed by "The Choice", and so let down by "The Conquest". She had the chance to let us see what the Earl of Drummond wanted in a wife, and I was so disappointed! It was like she used all her efforts on her previous book, and had nothing left. If he had to sit and think 3/4 of the book to decide that the heroine was right for "his title", and "his family", he should not have made any choice at all.

Described as the final book in Edith Layton's C series (and I hope it isn't!), this is at last Drum's story; the Earl of Drummond, friend of Ewen from The Cad, and the man on whom Gilly had such a crush in The Choice. Finally, we get to know Drum better, and to see him make his choice of bride.

One thing I learned very quickly about Drum in this book is that he is the son and heir of a duke; so why is he an earl and not a marquess? Minor point; Layton please note, all the same. As the book starts, Drum is very conscious of his duty to his family; he needs to marry and carry on the line. His father has also impressed on him the need to marry *well*: he has a duty to the dukedom to consider a wife worthy of his own rank. But he doesn't know anyone he really cares about enough to marry; and he's seen all his friends marry for love.

Drum believes that he just must not be capable of love; if he was, he surely would have fallen in love long ago, just as all his friends did. And he feels very reluctant to marry without love. He did, of course, propose to Gilly in The Choice, but he admits to himself (and Gilly acknowledges to Damon) that he only did it because she was there and in love with him and it was convenient. Now, though, he wonders whether he should just choose a suitable woman and be done with it. Someone like the Lady Annabelle, who has already been let down by his friends Damon and Rafe.

Riding through the forest, mulling over all this, he is shot at. Almost killed, he is brought to a cottage belonging to Alexandria Gascoyne and her three adoptive brothers, and there nursed. But because he feels grateful, he starts trying to do things for Alexandria: he builds her a barn and tries to give her money, which she resents because it underlines their difference in status, she being merely a schoolmaster's daughter and by no means good enough for an heir to a dukedom. Alexandria is fighting against her feelings for Drum, knowing that he believes she might try to compromise him or make demands on him in return for her help.

But ultimately he wants to help; back in London he misses her and he asks Gilly to invite her to London. He tells himself that he can give Alexandria a nice holiday and perhaps introduce her to a suitable husband. He hadn't counted on his own feelings suddenly being involved...

Almost all our old friends appear in The Conquest: Ewen and Bridget, Gilly and Damon, Rafe and Brenna. Drum's father makes a couple of appearances too, and we meet again Brenna's brother Eric, and Lady Annabelle. I was disappointed, though, not to see Wycoff and Lucy. Given that Eric is left single and unhappy, though, I am very much hoping that this will *not* be the last C novel after all!