Review

First of all, I love the Cynster family (and their close friends, the Bastion Club) beyond any kind of rational explanation. As far as I am concerned, Stephanie Laurens has set the standard for the family-of-rakish-Regency-hotties genre, and it is a high one indeed. Nobody does it like she does. Yes, her prose is a pronounced shade of violet, her love scenes can read a little too much like a horserace (all that taking and loosening of reins, and everything), but if I wanted dry, dull literature there is plenty out there to choose from. Laurens writes romance-with-a-capital-R, and I adore it.

That said, I am just a wee bit disappointed in In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster, Ms. Laurens’ latest tale of the prolific and passionate Cynster clan. Eliza is the second in the Cynster Brides Trilogy, a subset of the numerous Cynster stories, and it has the kind of themes Laurens does so well – the heroine’s kidnapping from a beau monde soiree, a mysterious Laird who may or may not be a villain, a hero whose previous indifference to the more tender emotions is swept away as he falls irrevocably in love.

So what’s the problem? Absolutely nothing, as long as you didn’t read Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue, the first Cynster Bride novel. But if you did, you may be disappointed, as I was, with the similarities between the two books.  Both feature the heroine’s abduction from a fancy party. It seems that he mysterious Laird with murky motives must compromise one of the Cynster sisters to settle some kind of old score for his mother, and so in both books, the heroine is taken by his unsavory henchmen from London to Scotland. Luckily, however, in both stories, the hero passes by at the exact moment that enables him to realize what has happened, follow the kidnappers, and help the heroine escape. They then have lots of scandal-worthy nights together alone as they make their arduous journey back to safety.

That’s a really good plot. It has many of the themes we Regency buffs crave in our reading material, and Ms. Laurens’ writing is, as always, fun to read. Her writing style is fast-moving and beautifully descriptive, and her characters are always rich and well-rounded. I especially love the scholarly Jeremy, who realizes there is more to life than a good Sumerian manuscript once he falls in with Eliza. Too many Regencies have heroes who don’t do much except slope around being rakish, and it was nice to have a hero with real interests. There’s plenty of meat here to make a satisfying book. It just falls a bit short of enough for two books.

I’m looking forward to the third novel, where I anticipate learning exactly what the kidnapper/Laird is up to, although I fear that the overall plot may be too similar to the first to make it really satisfying.  My best advice: pick either the first or second Cynster Bride novel – you don’t need to read both.

Reviewed by Donna