Book Review: Seduction by Brenda Joyce

Coalescing the bucolic scenery of the Cornish shores of England and the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror, romance writer Brenda Joyce spindles a tale flint by British aristocrats turned spies as one spy in particular captures the heart of a very naïve and romantic maiden, Julianne Greystone in Joyce’s latest novel “Seduction.” Though Julianne is persuaded by the pro-French Revolutionary rhetoric that is sweeping across England, her heart is captured by the enemy, Dominic Paget, Earl of Bedford, a Tory by principle and an adversary of the French Revolution.

The old adage that opposites attract seems to be true enough in “Seduction” until Julianne and Dominic realize that they have more in common than they want to admit. They come to see they are pursuing the same objective only from different sides.

When Dominic is first introduced, he is badly wounded and found on a deserted beach in France by Lucas Greystone and his brother Jack. The brothers had received orders from their uncle Warlock, a British spymaster, to transport the nearly dead man back to England. Unaware that their package is the Earl of Bedford who is a spy for Warlock, the brothers take Dominic to their home in Penzance, Cornwall where their sister Julianne can nurse him back to health.

As a romance blossoms between Julianne and her patient, she is blindsided when she learns that her patient is not Charles Maurice, a French Army soldier defending the revolution as he proclaimed, but a spy for the British government. Joyce is perceptive at putting in such clinchers at the right time to grab the reader’s attention. She spices up the romance by interspersing facts about the battles between the revolutionary Jacobins in France and the royalists in England who fought to restore the French Monarchy. Joyce has Julianne sucked into the business of espionage when Julianne must spy for the Jacobins to ensure the safety of her family in Cornwall.

In the vane of historical romances, Brenda Joyce pens a happy ending as Julianne and Dominic forgive each other for their individual deceptions, which allows them to revel in the news that Julianne is carrying their baby. Beyond the romance, Joyce shows how the English were affected by the Reign of Terror imbuing significance reflective of “The Scarlet Pimpernel” written by Baroness Emma Orczy. Joyce skillfully intertwines the social and political climate in England and France during the Reign of Terror making the story’s hero and heroine believable characters in the battles and bloodshed that carpeted both countries.


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