Two complete love stories in one beautiful book. Time travel… is just the beginning.She never thought time-travel was real. Until it happened to her…Researching her father’s journals in her spare time was the only experience Francine had with time-travel so when she’s tossed back in time, she regrets she didn’t pay more attention to the past… of course that’s only after she finally admits … finally admits to herself that she has been tossed into another world, much like a Victorian freaky-Friday.
The first thing Francine had to reconcile was that a woman in Victorian England was a commodity. She’s owned. Francine was no longer the powerful business woman she’d been only moments ago and on top of it all she’s being chased b a man who wants her dead, or worse.
Her only chance for safety lies in Gideon Trumbull the lionhearted—but evasive—duke who discovered her, terrified, running for her life, at the edge of his lands.
What began as a compulsion to learn anything she could about him turned into an urgent need and she found herself in an inescapable new reality—a world in which she doesn’t belong.
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Meanwhile… Gideon’s brother Perry has likewise been caught up in an incident. Finding a stowaway housemaid in his carriage as he’s bound for London will be the most life-changing moment of his life.
She plots to seduce the rake who refuses to touch her.
Propriety be damned.
Getting him to teach her what love is… seemed like just the right challenge to sooth her damaged soul. Until the man who chased Francine sets his sites on someone much more accessible.
The entire Trumbull family comes together to protect the women they’ve accepted into the fold in the first installment in the Trumbull Family Saga, The Rake and The Recluse.
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I won this book months ago on GoodReads and it’s been sitting on my self just taunting me. So when I arranged to have Jenn guest at Romancing the Book, I figured this would be the time to read the book. What I found was a delightful debut novel… complete with pictures.
I’ll be honest. I don’t think the photos in this book really added much to me. It’s an interesting concept, but in the end it just felt like filler to me.
However, I did enjoy the story. A girl time travels back to Victorian England, falls in love with a reclusive Duke, has an evil Earl chasing her, and ends up with a rake as her guardian. At times the characters (in particular the rake, recluse and bad guy) all seemed a little cookie cutter in characteristics and action. But luckily, the plot and the character of Francine helped make this an enjoyable read.
There were a few times where actions or situations seemed a little too unbelievable and there were a few editing issues. But this is still a solid, read that kept me turning the pages. And I hope that “the rake” from The Rake and the Recluse gets his own story since he was left hanging as this novel concluded.
My review originally posted at Romancing the Book.
This was a very in depth story. You definitely get 2 books worth with this one. There were many parts that dragged out too long in my opinion, but overall it was a good book. The characters were well developed and there were some definite twists. Overall I enjoyed reading the story!
I really enjoyed this book as it wasn’t just a simple love story. One woman went back in time and I didn’t care too much for that part to be honest. I did love the details in how everything came about with both brothers and how they fell in love. Perry was my favorite of the 2 brothers. I really enjoy this book and recommend it to anyone that is just looking for a nice love story.
Interesting story, made believable by the special characters. Too many explicit scenes for my taste–slowed down the story and were annoying for me. Others might like the sex. The story was both time-travel romance and an across classes romance. Thoroughly enjoyable.
I really loved how two stories were blended into one. I couldn’t put it down until I finished the book.
Nice to get two stories in one
Good characters. Interesting plot. Two books in one. Thoroughly enjoyed it
I enjoy time travel romances. I liked how the author handled the “fitting in” of the person in their new time.
This book is a test of endurance, comprised as it is of six serials. There a few passages that were lovely descriptions of being in love, particularly when a dowager duchess is observing her life, juxtaposed against the young twin sisters’ reactions. I don’t know why this had to be a time travel mystery, unless it was to explain that Francine knew self defense (and could manage a karate foot kick in an empire slim skirted dress), also sign language and naturally she chafed against all those Victorian restrictions on a lady’s behavior. There’s a very unsatisfying reveal of her time travel to her (at long last) husband with an unresolved plot line about his mother’s diary. A lot more could have been developed with more of her slips about 20th century life. A major edited gaffe remains, repeating an entire chapter a little later in the book. The secondary plot about the brother is incongruous and implausible; the author had to sandwich it in to suit her chronology. All in all, this is a lot to read, plenty of endurance sex (how many times can they drain bathwater in a tub made for two – really?) Sadly this one falls short of the mark.
Oh, the poor Recluse! He not only almost runs down a young woman with his carriage, but she turns out to be a lunatic! She is disturbing his peaceful existence and he wants to be rid of her. Well, she is not really a lunatic but a woman from present-day America who has suddenly found herself in England and the date is April 1880. So, she went a little ballistic. Who wouldn’t in her place? She quickly discovers that she needs to calm down if she wants to avoid being sent to an asylum! And what about the Rake? Well, he quickly becomes an ally, helping to bring the Recluse to his senses. But, he has his own love story to tell! I like that this book has 2 stories. They are intertwined but separate. And the Rake finds that he has to come to his senses, too! I enjoyed this book. I haven’t read the next in the series yet but the book doesn’t have a cliffhanger ending.
Way too much mooning about the other… little action.
Very long. Was interesting but way too long.
The book was too long. I finished with the marriage of the first characters and then though the second characters had appeared some in the first part of the book, the second part was a story about the. It should have been a second book. I read part way through their story and just got tired of the length. The first half was good. Make it into two books.