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Masters at Arms #5
Gallant Match
Kerr Wallace has spent years studying swordplay, preparing to challenge his sworn enemy and avenge his brother's death. The scoundrel Rouillard, now living in Mexico as a profiteer, has decided to take a wife, and the lady requires an escort to Veracruz. Kerr seizes his chance—he will deliver the bride…and dispatch the groom.
If only it were so easy. Headstrong Sonia Bonneval will do anything to escape this doomed marriage to Rouillard. Coquettish ploys cannot melt the iron resolve of her damnable escort, however, and the voyage with Kerr becomes an exhilarating battle of wills. But a very real declaration of war forces them into even closer quarters—and greater temptation—in a fight for survival. Before the end, both must choose between duty and freedom—vengeance and passion.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2009
38 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Blake
160 books545 followersA pseudonym used by Patricia Maxwell.
Jennifer Blake has been called a “pioneer of the romance genre”, and an “icon of the romance industry.” A New York Times and international best selling author since 1977, she is a charter member of Romance Writers of America, member of the RWA Hall of Fame, and recipient of the RWA Lifetime Achievement Rita. She holds numerous other honors, including two “Maggies”, two Holt Medallions, multiple Reviewer’s Choice Awards, the Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BookReviews Magazine, and the Frank Waters Award for literary excellence. She has written over 60 books with translations in 20 languages and more than 30 million copies in print worldwide.
Jennifer and her husband reside in a lakeside Caribbean-style retreat in North Louisiana where they often entertain family and friends. Always a gardener, she spends much of her time encouraging her garden to bloom with her favorite daylilies and antique roses. She also enjoys walking her two dogs, Buffy and Lucky, and indulging in needlework, painting, and travel.
Jennifer Blake has been called a “pioneer of the romance genre”, and an “icon of the romance industry.” A New York Times and international best selling author since 1977, she is a charter member of Romance Writers of America, member of the RWA Hall of Fame, and recipient of the RWA Lifetime Achievement Rita. She holds numerous other honors, including two “Maggies”, two Holt Medallions, multiple Reviewer’s Choice Awards, the Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BookReviews Magazine, and the Frank Waters Award for literary excellence. She has written over 60 books with translations in 20 languages and more than 30 million copies in print worldwide.
Jennifer and her husband reside in a lakeside Caribbean-style retreat in North Louisiana where they often entertain family and friends. Always a gardener, she spends much of her time encouraging her garden to bloom with her favorite daylilies and antique roses. She also enjoys walking her two dogs, Buffy and Lucky, and indulging in needlework, painting, and travel.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 15, 2013
Kerr Wallace's brother was betrayed by a friend, and the betrayal resulted in his death. Kerr has been working as a maitre d'armes in New Orleans while he looks for a way to get to Mexico, where he plans to avenge his brother's death. He hires on as professional escort
…for a young bride to be—who just happens to be betrothed to the very man he's after. Perfect opportunity!
It doesn't matter to Kerr that Sonia is desperate to avoid this trip. Sensing that she plans to escape before the journey, he lays in wait and takes her prisoner, locking her up on the ship until it can depart. Forget that she had nothing to do with the crime against his brother and she doesn't deserve to be handed unwillingly to a villain. Kerr is absolutely determined to sacrifice this girl to get his vengeance. Oh, he promises himself that she'll come to no harm—but we never really figure out what he means by that, since he also contemplates the possibility that she'll have to endure a wedding night before he makes her a widow. And he makes no effort to reassure her—he just lets her believe he's just going to abandon her to suffer what amounts to lifelong rape by a man she despises.
He initially has a reason—he doesn't know her well and doesn't trust her not to warn the fiance that her escort plans to kill him, but once he gets to know her, there's no excuse. And yes, he battles occasionally with guilt, though it doesn't stop him from holding her against her will, or leaving her pretty much miserable and desperate. Needless to say, I thought Kerr was a complete
And then there's Sonia. She does everything she can to persuade Kerr not to take her to Mexico, then she makes a run for it—she gets captured and literally dragged aboard the ship, locked in a cabin. Now, she knows Kerr will have to leave the ship to collect her aunt/chaperon and baggage. Does she pound and kick the door and scream her head off until someone comes to find out what's up? Nope. She does swear that she'll make Kerr wish he was never born—but almost the very next time she sees him she feels "forced" to accept his escort, put her hand on his arm and make conversation, because, gee, it would be rude to just fart in his general direction and go join some people she actually likes. And not many pages after that, she's engaging in tonsil-hockey with this guy. When she finally does try to make good her promise,
And yet, despite the fact that most of my notes for this book are of the "WTF?" variety, I genuinely enjoyed this book. As sometimes happens, my dislike for Kerr and my urgent need to see Sonia stand up for herself had me up late flipping pages, which means I was quite engaged emotionally with both the MC's. By the end, both characters had (more or less) redeemed themselves, and I liked the denouement. AND the story is chock full of historical detail around the events leading up to and including the Mexican-American War. So this one gets 4 stars.
…for a young bride to be—who just happens to be betrothed to the very man he's after. Perfect opportunity!
It doesn't matter to Kerr that Sonia is desperate to avoid this trip. Sensing that she plans to escape before the journey, he lays in wait and takes her prisoner, locking her up on the ship until it can depart. Forget that she had nothing to do with the crime against his brother and she doesn't deserve to be handed unwillingly to a villain. Kerr is absolutely determined to sacrifice this girl to get his vengeance. Oh, he promises himself that she'll come to no harm—but we never really figure out what he means by that, since he also contemplates the possibility that she'll have to endure a wedding night before he makes her a widow. And he makes no effort to reassure her—he just lets her believe he's just going to abandon her to suffer what amounts to lifelong rape by a man she despises.
He initially has a reason—he doesn't know her well and doesn't trust her not to warn the fiance that her escort plans to kill him, but once he gets to know her, there's no excuse. And yes, he battles occasionally with guilt, though it doesn't stop him from holding her against her will, or leaving her pretty much miserable and desperate. Needless to say, I thought Kerr was a complete
And then there's Sonia. She does everything she can to persuade Kerr not to take her to Mexico, then she makes a run for it—she gets captured and literally dragged aboard the ship, locked in a cabin. Now, she knows Kerr will have to leave the ship to collect her aunt/chaperon and baggage. Does she pound and kick the door and scream her head off until someone comes to find out what's up? Nope. She does swear that she'll make Kerr wish he was never born—but almost the very next time she sees him she feels "forced" to accept his escort, put her hand on his arm and make conversation, because, gee, it would be rude to just fart in his general direction and go join some people she actually likes. And not many pages after that, she's engaging in tonsil-hockey with this guy. When she finally does try to make good her promise,
And yet, despite the fact that most of my notes for this book are of the "WTF?" variety, I genuinely enjoyed this book. As sometimes happens, my dislike for Kerr and my urgent need to see Sonia stand up for herself had me up late flipping pages, which means I was quite engaged emotionally with both the MC's. By the end, both characters had (more or less) redeemed themselves, and I liked the denouement. AND the story is chock full of historical detail around the events leading up to and including the Mexican-American War. So this one gets 4 stars.
June 2, 2021
I stuck it out with this lengthy historical romance, which gets off to a really slow start. And when I say “start” I’m referring to the first 268 pages of the book. Jennifer Blake is a master at detail, however, so little happened for me for such a long time that it was surely my refusal to put down a book once I’ve started reading it that urged me to continue. Sonia Bonneval is to be delivered to her awaiting groom, Rouillard, and who better to accept the job than Kerr Wallace, master swordsman who, by no coincidence, despises the man awaiting them at the end of their journey, the man who is responsible for his brother’s death. The premise is intriguing enough but the book drags on for a considerable amount of time as Sonia and Kerr, who share a mutual attraction, one which develops far too slowly in my humble opinion, await their fate as their days slowly pass onboard a ship headed to Mexico. Perhaps I’m exaggerating, or simply don’t have a photographic memory of everything I read in those early pages, but get ready for a ton of introspection, lengthy descriptions of what everyone’s eating for dinner and other such erroneous details, and eventually a kiss, after which the tension continues, mainly on Kerr’s part, but it will still be a considerable amount of time before anything to speak of actually happens.
The big shift of events occurs when the ship Kerr, Sonia and the others are sailing on is attacked by the Mexicans and Kerr and Sonia, who are on deck at the time, escape a dramatic episode only to end up taking the rest of their journey, on foot, along their own dramatic course. Though I wasn’t particularly riveted by the attack itself, it serves as a major turning point as hero and heroine, who’ve now been fighting their attraction to one another for more than half the book, are left to their own devices. As they fight to survive in the wilds of Mexico, it is soon learned that they share a mutual hatred of the man they’re headed to see and it isn’t long after when Sonia devises an ingenious plan. Now abundantly aware of Kerr’s attraction to her, as she’s been trotting around in the equivalent to underwear of her day, she considers that perhaps Rouillard wouldn’t be so keen on taking his bride to be for his wife if she were “ruined.” She puts her proposition straight to Kerr and then, for the next 114 pages this book quickly turns from being a toss-aside to one of the most exciting stories I’ve ever read. Kerr and Sonia’s attraction sparks from a low flame to a roaring fire, and it’s a matter of seconds before they’re acting on their passion, passion which becomes a drug as, once they give into it, it seems they can’t get enough. Their final time together, or at least, what they believe will be their final time, is as hot as the first, described in red hot detail which brings their erotic experience to life and sets the stage for the next suspenseful twist, when Rouillard’s men appear from what feels like nowhere and shoot Kerr (not dead, but he’s injured pretty badly) and take him and Sonia prisoner.
Ms. Blake wastes no time showing us what a truly evil man her villain, who’s finally on-screen so to speak, really is. We learn of his crimes, including the ones Sonia’s father is involved in (gasp!). And with Kerr locked in a secret room and Sonia at his mercy, Rouillard is determined to know one thing – what happened between Wallace and his bride to be when the two of them were alone. Sonia, who’s essentially realized her plan was a whopping failure, (ya think??) attempts to find and rescue Kerr on her own but her plan fails yet again and when she and Kerr are backed against the wall, Kerr proposes the one card he has, challenging Rouillard to a duel. The duel takes a dramatic twist and ends in a stunning conclusion that had me on the edge of my seat, bringing the very exciting and suspenseful portion of this story to a close. I would have been happy to see the book end shortly thereafter, keeping the excitement level high, especially since the conflict has essentially been resolved for Kerr and Sonia, something they might have realized if only they’d talked to each other. But alas, they DON’T talk to each other, at least not right away and instead we get another 30 pages of introspection and dragging things out. Fortunately, I was completely invested at that point. And the ending is VERY satisfying, when at last it comes.
Kid yourself not. This book may get off to a slow start but when it gets good, it gets really, really good! If I were strictly rating pages 268 – 382 I would have given it 5 stars without question. Honestly, you can probably skim a lot of what happens before that time and simply jump ahead, if you really have no patience at all. Or, if you’re like me, just push through those early pages and when you get to the good part, you’re in for a real treat. It took a while, but I really enjoyed Gallant Match. You’ve still got it, Jennifer Blake!
The big shift of events occurs when the ship Kerr, Sonia and the others are sailing on is attacked by the Mexicans and Kerr and Sonia, who are on deck at the time, escape a dramatic episode only to end up taking the rest of their journey, on foot, along their own dramatic course. Though I wasn’t particularly riveted by the attack itself, it serves as a major turning point as hero and heroine, who’ve now been fighting their attraction to one another for more than half the book, are left to their own devices. As they fight to survive in the wilds of Mexico, it is soon learned that they share a mutual hatred of the man they’re headed to see and it isn’t long after when Sonia devises an ingenious plan. Now abundantly aware of Kerr’s attraction to her, as she’s been trotting around in the equivalent to underwear of her day, she considers that perhaps Rouillard wouldn’t be so keen on taking his bride to be for his wife if she were “ruined.” She puts her proposition straight to Kerr and then, for the next 114 pages this book quickly turns from being a toss-aside to one of the most exciting stories I’ve ever read. Kerr and Sonia’s attraction sparks from a low flame to a roaring fire, and it’s a matter of seconds before they’re acting on their passion, passion which becomes a drug as, once they give into it, it seems they can’t get enough. Their final time together, or at least, what they believe will be their final time, is as hot as the first, described in red hot detail which brings their erotic experience to life and sets the stage for the next suspenseful twist, when Rouillard’s men appear from what feels like nowhere and shoot Kerr (not dead, but he’s injured pretty badly) and take him and Sonia prisoner.
Ms. Blake wastes no time showing us what a truly evil man her villain, who’s finally on-screen so to speak, really is. We learn of his crimes, including the ones Sonia’s father is involved in (gasp!). And with Kerr locked in a secret room and Sonia at his mercy, Rouillard is determined to know one thing – what happened between Wallace and his bride to be when the two of them were alone. Sonia, who’s essentially realized her plan was a whopping failure, (ya think??) attempts to find and rescue Kerr on her own but her plan fails yet again and when she and Kerr are backed against the wall, Kerr proposes the one card he has, challenging Rouillard to a duel. The duel takes a dramatic twist and ends in a stunning conclusion that had me on the edge of my seat, bringing the very exciting and suspenseful portion of this story to a close. I would have been happy to see the book end shortly thereafter, keeping the excitement level high, especially since the conflict has essentially been resolved for Kerr and Sonia, something they might have realized if only they’d talked to each other. But alas, they DON’T talk to each other, at least not right away and instead we get another 30 pages of introspection and dragging things out. Fortunately, I was completely invested at that point. And the ending is VERY satisfying, when at last it comes.
Kid yourself not. This book may get off to a slow start but when it gets good, it gets really, really good! If I were strictly rating pages 268 – 382 I would have given it 5 stars without question. Honestly, you can probably skim a lot of what happens before that time and simply jump ahead, if you really have no patience at all. Or, if you’re like me, just push through those early pages and when you get to the good part, you’re in for a real treat. It took a while, but I really enjoyed Gallant Match. You’ve still got it, Jennifer Blake!
October 22, 2017
And yet another great read!
This was a great fifth book of this series. The adventure in it was so good. Very interesting history, the beginning of the war between the US and Mexico mid 1800's.
The romance was good. The book is definitely worth reading for those who enjoy the historical romance novels.
This was a great fifth book of this series. The adventure in it was so good. Very interesting history, the beginning of the war between the US and Mexico mid 1800's.
The romance was good. The book is definitely worth reading for those who enjoy the historical romance novels.
September 30, 2018
Another great historical romance series by Jennifer Blake I read this month. Swords & hot men & mystery, suspense, romance, tied together in awesomeness.
Although I think I liked books 1-3 the best book 4 was very slow going. But the rest of the series was good. Read the series in 2 weeks.
I have enjoyed reading all of her books so far. She is a new author for me in 2018.
Although I think I liked books 1-3 the best book 4 was very slow going. But the rest of the series was good. Read the series in 2 weeks.
I have enjoyed reading all of her books so far. She is a new author for me in 2018.
June 25, 2017
Very romantic with lots of adventure. A thrilling read.
September 2, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
I enjoyed this, the pacing was interesting and I loved all the details that were put into it by the author. 😊
I enjoyed this, the pacing was interesting and I loved all the details that were put into it by the author. 😊
January 5, 2010
This is one in a series that I thought was a little slow but the end was great. The end was worth the read.
Read
November 9, 2010not very good
October 22, 2014
I enjoyed this more than some of the other books in this series, yet not as much as the third one.
September 16, 2013
A little slow at first, but still a good traditional romance. Sometimes you just want an easy read.
May 29, 2016
Rated 4 Stars
September 15, 2023
this book is such a good read. so much better then the last ones
February 5, 2010
good, but was not quite as fast paced as the other books in the series.
Read
July 28, 2011it was okay.. just not enough action =T
Read
March 13, 2017DNF.
I'm going through a pile of old school romances I bought as a box a while ago. Some of then were great, but others, well, just not for me.
This one started out cute, somehow these old schools all do, but then at 25% it somehow all falls apart when the drama enters. In this book it header straight toward misunderstanding, villain, etcetera and I just didn't care to go that way.
This book is going to be donated.
I'm going through a pile of old school romances I bought as a box a while ago. Some of then were great, but others, well, just not for me.
This one started out cute, somehow these old schools all do, but then at 25% it somehow all falls apart when the drama enters. In this book it header straight toward misunderstanding, villain, etcetera and I just didn't care to go that way.
This book is going to be donated.
April 22, 2017
Very good. Recommend.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews