Consequence

by Hazel Statham

Can a rake reform his ways and truly love? Lizzie's head tells her one thing, her heart another. Infamous rake and Corinthian, Maxim Beaufort, Earl of St. Ive, finding himself in possession of a property in Yorkshire, is unprepared for the changes it will bring into his life. Irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth Granger, the former owner's daughter, he attempts to help the family, finding himself filling the role of benefactor. When the house is razed to the ground, he arranges for temporary accommodation for Elizabeth and her siblings on his estate. When Elizabeth rejects his proposal of marriage, he is nonetheless determined to win her over. However, events and his reputation conspire to thwart his efforts and his course is one fraught with dangers. Trust does not come easily and determined to protect her heart, Elizabeth struggles to resist her own longings. At times, their difficulties appear insurmountable but the earl is widely known as 'The Indomitable' and the name was not lightly earned.

283 pages, Hardcover

First published August 5, 2011

Reviews

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's nothing like starting off a novel with a good old fashioned duel.

Hazel Statham has written another lovely historical romance with Consequence. When the Duke of Lear must flee to his cousin in Paris, he doesn't expect to find strong willed Julie, who is more than a match for his wits. Both headstrong and feisty, Marcel and Julie make for a pair that kept me turning the pages.

I highly enjoyed Marcel and Julie's exchanges - especially at the beginning of the relationship. There is something about a battle of wills, as Marcel calls it, that really gets me to care about the characters and their romance. In many of Marcel's and Julie's scenes together, I found myself smiling.

Statham's true strength in Consequence has to be the dialogue for me. The words said, especially between Marcel and Julie, are beautiful and sometimes verging on being poetry. I know I mentioned before how much I love their exchanges, but the dialogue needs to be commented on again.

Statham occasionally wanders into using fancy words instead of the word 'said', which made a sentence here and there clunky. But there wasn't anything that threw me out of the story entirely. The threat of that came more from the names. In historical stories, people with titles are often referred to their titles by some people and their surnames by others. While historically accurate, I did find myself double-checking a couple times in the beginning to make sure I knew who was speaking.

[Tabitha Kronenwetter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to really like this book, but it was hard to. The story was intriguing, but the writing wasn't great. I read the word "lackey" more times than I ever thought possible. I seriously think she averaged one every two pages. Someone needs to buy her a thesaurus. It was also a little fast paced, I think she could have taken some more time to develop the story. But my biggest complaint is that the blurb on the book jacket gives away like 90% of the story! Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? In the end it was a mediocre book that I'll likely never read again and probably won't recommend.

[Louisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book, but the Duke, I just didn't like him most of the time. Other then that, it was great!

[Beeface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shades of Georgette Heyer! Ms Statham must have been channeling the late Ms Heyer, the tone was very, very reminiscent of her Georgian novels.