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Dangerous
Searching for the kidnapper of her missing cousin, Emma Wakefield apprehends the Marquess of Andover--who promptly escapes from her cellar and appears in her bedroom, insisting he will find the true culprit. Although her ally is a scoundrel suspected of murder, Emma knows the only true danger is in losing her heart to him. (August)
368 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2002
50 people want to read
About the author
Debra Dier
20 books45 followersRumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The first time I saw a reader mention my possible demise in an online review, chills rippled over my skin. It is odd to read someone say she loves you and she thinks you must have died because nothing new has been published in years. To that reader and to anyone else who may have mourned my passing I say: I have been buried in all the wonderful joys and duties and responsibilities of motherhood.
Yes, other writers manage to keep pumping out books while dealing with children. I think I may have continued, except I had the loss of my mom hit right at the time I was finishing the last book on my contract. I just couldn't find the heart to pick up my quill. Instead, I plunged into volunteer work. Once I left that realm where the written word reigned, I never sought a way back into it. I was Alice who forgot about the looking glass.
My best friend gave me a magnet a couple of years ago that had “Stop me before I volunteer again!” emblazoned across the shiny surface beneath the face of a young woman who resembled me. She told me she was tired of waiting for another book. I realized my short hiatus from writing had turned into a twelve year sabbatical. I stepped back into my office, looked at my computer and decided she was right. I sat down and began writing the first book in a series of fantasy novels for older teens and adults.
While I was working on the new series, I obtained the rights to all of my previously published novels. The next day a New York publisher contacted me and asked to buy the rights to those novels. They wanted to publish them immediately. It was tempting, but instead of allowing those books to be published in their original form, I decided to take a peek at them and see if there was anything I might do differently today. I was always the type of writer who would have been revising in the bookstore if bookstores did not frown upon such tactics. The first book, Beyond Forever, took eight months to re-write. In reality, I kept the concept and a little of the original and wrote a new book. The result is A Twist of Fate which will be available late November 2013.
In the past year I have reconnected with an old love—writing. As I work my way through the old novels, I find my concepts and choices concerning characters and plot have altered over the years. I am currently working on revising all the old books. And yes, eventually, soon I hope, I will return to the new series. Before I get another magnet from Kim.
Debra Dier is the bestselling author of sixteen critically acclaimed romance novels and short stories. Her work has earned her a place in the Writer's Hall of Fame.
Deb was born and raised in Niagara Falls, New York. Although she always knew she wanted to do something creative in life, well-meaning family members talked her into doing something in a much more practical light. She received a BS in Information Systems Management and headed down a career path that included writing computer code and designing computer systems. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she thought of a purely creative career. For some mystifying reason, she was put on a fast track in that career and became a manager of other programmers and analysts in a large corporation at a young age. It was then she decided to try her hand at writing something other than computer systems. After her first novel, Surrender the Dream was published, she took the plunge into writing full time. She has never regretted that decision.
When her daughter was a toddler, Debra decided to take a short hiatus from writing to concentrate on all things motherhood. There wasn't a task she didn't take on, including making Halloween costumes, volunteering for room parent every year, and becoming a Girl Scout leader. By the way, her idea of camping is staying at a three star hotel. Not precisely the roughing it kind of girl. At the urging of her daughter, Deb has found herself sleeping on a mat in a ten
Yes, other writers manage to keep pumping out books while dealing with children. I think I may have continued, except I had the loss of my mom hit right at the time I was finishing the last book on my contract. I just couldn't find the heart to pick up my quill. Instead, I plunged into volunteer work. Once I left that realm where the written word reigned, I never sought a way back into it. I was Alice who forgot about the looking glass.
My best friend gave me a magnet a couple of years ago that had “Stop me before I volunteer again!” emblazoned across the shiny surface beneath the face of a young woman who resembled me. She told me she was tired of waiting for another book. I realized my short hiatus from writing had turned into a twelve year sabbatical. I stepped back into my office, looked at my computer and decided she was right. I sat down and began writing the first book in a series of fantasy novels for older teens and adults.
While I was working on the new series, I obtained the rights to all of my previously published novels. The next day a New York publisher contacted me and asked to buy the rights to those novels. They wanted to publish them immediately. It was tempting, but instead of allowing those books to be published in their original form, I decided to take a peek at them and see if there was anything I might do differently today. I was always the type of writer who would have been revising in the bookstore if bookstores did not frown upon such tactics. The first book, Beyond Forever, took eight months to re-write. In reality, I kept the concept and a little of the original and wrote a new book. The result is A Twist of Fate which will be available late November 2013.
In the past year I have reconnected with an old love—writing. As I work my way through the old novels, I find my concepts and choices concerning characters and plot have altered over the years. I am currently working on revising all the old books. And yes, eventually, soon I hope, I will return to the new series. Before I get another magnet from Kim.
Debra Dier is the bestselling author of sixteen critically acclaimed romance novels and short stories. Her work has earned her a place in the Writer's Hall of Fame.
Deb was born and raised in Niagara Falls, New York. Although she always knew she wanted to do something creative in life, well-meaning family members talked her into doing something in a much more practical light. She received a BS in Information Systems Management and headed down a career path that included writing computer code and designing computer systems. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she thought of a purely creative career. For some mystifying reason, she was put on a fast track in that career and became a manager of other programmers and analysts in a large corporation at a young age. It was then she decided to try her hand at writing something other than computer systems. After her first novel, Surrender the Dream was published, she took the plunge into writing full time. She has never regretted that decision.
When her daughter was a toddler, Debra decided to take a short hiatus from writing to concentrate on all things motherhood. There wasn't a task she didn't take on, including making Halloween costumes, volunteering for room parent every year, and becoming a Girl Scout leader. By the way, her idea of camping is staying at a three star hotel. Not precisely the roughing it kind of girl. At the urging of her daughter, Deb has found herself sleeping on a mat in a ten
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 12, 2024
God, This woman! I hate her! She keeps making stupid decisions just because "she can do the same things a man can", but we're talking about situations where a man would be killed if she did what she wanted.
He, on the other hand, is an asshole. He continuously puts h in compromising situations "to teach her a lesson", and makes stupid decisions too.
The "romance" makes no sense. She's obnoxious, reacts violently to H most of the time (throwing things, holding him at gunpoint...), and then gets upset H expects her to behave violently towards him... Why do they love each other? She doesn't trust him, then flips a switch and now she does. And they think of each other mostly on therms of physical attraction.
Lastly, the plot twist. Throughout the story, we get snippets of information that point to H's friend being Gaetan (the owner of the brothel), and we get some chapters in Gaetan's POV that make you believe he's a man (using he/his is a big part of it), and we're told he's close to H, so the actual identity of this antagonist makes no sense.
It was a chore to finish this. It took months. The prose wasn't too bad, and at least there were no grammar or punctuation errors, so there's that.
He, on the other hand, is an asshole. He continuously puts h in compromising situations "to teach her a lesson", and makes stupid decisions too.
The "romance" makes no sense. She's obnoxious, reacts violently to H most of the time (throwing things, holding him at gunpoint...), and then gets upset H expects her to behave violently towards him... Why do they love each other? She doesn't trust him, then flips a switch and now she does. And they think of each other mostly on therms of physical attraction.
Lastly, the plot twist. Throughout the story, we get snippets of information that point to H's friend being Gaetan (the owner of the brothel), and we get some chapters in Gaetan's POV that make you believe he's a man (using he/his is a big part of it), and we're told he's close to H, so the actual identity of this antagonist makes no sense.
It was a chore to finish this. It took months. The prose wasn't too bad, and at least there were no grammar or punctuation errors, so there's that.
September 18, 2024
September Readathon
There's a lot going on but it never amounts to much. It also reads like three half-conceived plots shortcutted into one book.
The heroine is supposed to be capable and courageous but mostly she bungles things. The hero is supposed to be cold and calculating but mostly he can only manage to react to what happens. Events unfold around and to them.
There's an abrupt pivot at the 3/4 mark where suddenly she's got her wits about her and she's able with her own derring-do, he's wide open with his emotions, and they're completely in love. Then they consummate this with his burned and bandaged hands--when, after making a huge deal of treating and bandaging his hands moments before, they don't mention it again.
Several times, big plot beats are resolved in anticlimactic ways. And the resolutions go really smoothly, given the buildup. The investigation, the break-up of the brothel, the situation with the hero's nephew, the situation with the heroine's cousin. Even their sudden declaration of love and shift in their dynamic cools things down, and it's only external forces that threaten them thereafter--but again in almost offhand, and off-page, ways that are too easy to get free from.
Golly, even even the heroine's secret identity is already known and accepted by her now-complacently smug and happy husband, and when she gets to reveal, he steals the moment by saying yes dear I know it's fine. And her secret identity was one of the few things I went Hey, Nice about.
Parts were present in these three-some-plots that made me hopeful. But nothing satisfying ever coalesced.
Could have been an:
-- opposites attract solving a mystery that unravels a much bigger, darker scheme
-- two people with personal determination butting heads and falling in love adventure regency
-- opposites attract caught in social mores and manners who chafe against them to fall in love and mend the issues in their respective, overlapping, family dramas
Too bad it wasn't any of those, alone, and well developed.
I was baffled the secret bad guy was handled with a "they're a good person at heart, they've suffered enough," and otherwise handwaved. This by our many times over said to be errant knight hero who rescues stray dogs, hates to see ill done to the weaker, and takes on righting various wrongs.
Dier got heavy-handed with the little device of ending a scene on a metaphor with the heroine, to then echo and repeat it exactly with the hero to open the very next scene. Sometimes that really works, but save it and use sparingly for impact; it got predictable and a bit silly.
Moon/light and like a fist were metaphors used too often, because I noticed how often they were used.
There's a lot going on but it never amounts to much. It also reads like three half-conceived plots shortcutted into one book.
The heroine is supposed to be capable and courageous but mostly she bungles things. The hero is supposed to be cold and calculating but mostly he can only manage to react to what happens. Events unfold around and to them.
There's an abrupt pivot at the 3/4 mark where suddenly she's got her wits about her and she's able with her own derring-do, he's wide open with his emotions, and they're completely in love. Then they consummate this with his burned and bandaged hands--when, after making a huge deal of treating and bandaging his hands moments before, they don't mention it again.
Several times, big plot beats are resolved in anticlimactic ways. And the resolutions go really smoothly, given the buildup. The investigation, the break-up of the brothel, the situation with the hero's nephew, the situation with the heroine's cousin. Even their sudden declaration of love and shift in their dynamic cools things down, and it's only external forces that threaten them thereafter--but again in almost offhand, and off-page, ways that are too easy to get free from.
Golly, even even the heroine's secret identity is already known and accepted by her now-complacently smug and happy husband, and when she gets to reveal, he steals the moment by saying yes dear I know it's fine. And her secret identity was one of the few things I went Hey, Nice about.
Parts were present in these three-some-plots that made me hopeful. But nothing satisfying ever coalesced.
Could have been an:
-- opposites attract solving a mystery that unravels a much bigger, darker scheme
-- two people with personal determination butting heads and falling in love adventure regency
-- opposites attract caught in social mores and manners who chafe against them to fall in love and mend the issues in their respective, overlapping, family dramas
Too bad it wasn't any of those, alone, and well developed.
I was baffled the secret bad guy was handled with a "they're a good person at heart, they've suffered enough," and otherwise handwaved. This by our many times over said to be errant knight hero who rescues stray dogs, hates to see ill done to the weaker, and takes on righting various wrongs.
Dier got heavy-handed with the little device of ending a scene on a metaphor with the heroine, to then echo and repeat it exactly with the hero to open the very next scene. Sometimes that really works, but save it and use sparingly for impact; it got predictable and a bit silly.
Moon/light and like a fist were metaphors used too often, because I noticed how often they were used.
February 17, 2023
Old school writing with that effervescent, exclamation!mark galore feel. Kind of illogical plot but it was still fun. I mean, who's gonna really arrest a marquess.
September 25, 2009
Regency
December 30, 2019
This author is always good for a little spice at the right time and a little romance, too. I recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews