The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst - Louise Allen
Mills and Boon Historical
Harlequin Mills and Boon, 2009
ISBN: 9780263867978
My rating
From the back cover:
"We’ve heard tell of the shocking high seas adventures of a certain high-society lady – Miss R–!
Alone and in danger, Clemence Ravenhurst is forced to flee her beloved Jamaica. Disguised as a boy, she falls straight into the clutches of one of the most dangerous pirates in the Caribbean!
Nathan Stanier, disgraced undercover naval officer and navigator, protects Clemence on their perilous journey. The heat between them sizzles. But honour – and his guarded heart – dictate that Nathan resist Clemence. Though it seems she’s determined to make their adventure as outrageous – and passionate – as possible!
Those Scandalous Ravenhursts"
This is the first ever Historical romance I have read. Part of this challenge was to try and be as varied as possible, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I picked up a Historical. This book was recommended to me by Heidi Rice, who also informed me that it won Love Story of the Year at this years RNA Pure Passion awards. Let me say a huge congratulations to Louise Allen.
After her fathers death the heroine Clemance is being looked after by her uncle. Only he's not so much looking after her more trying to force her to marry his son in order to get his nasty hands on her inheritance. Knowing she is in a desperate situation Clemance decides to escape hoping to stow away on a ship scheduled to sail to England the next day. However this doesn't go to plan when, disguised as a boy, she arrives at the dock to find the ship has left early and is then kidnapped by an infamous pirate. Clemance is put to work as the cabin boy for the pirate ship's new navigator, the hero Nathan. Nathan is actually an undercover Navy officer in charge of, hopefully, leading the pirates into a trap.
When Nathan finds out Clemance is a girl he vows to protect her, but they both find they are attracted to one another. Clemance knows that her reputation will be ruined due to the time she has spent in the company of pirates but takes comfort in knowing that her powerful family will be able to shelter her, something she keeps a secret from Nathan.
So, if we take everything but the relationship between Nathan and Clemance away then I will say I really enjoyed the book. Unfortunately the rest of it was not so enjoyable for me. As a person I'm not really 'into' history as a form of entertainment; I don't like period dramas, films, TV shows, books like Pride and Prejudice etc. That's just they way I'm drawn, I live very much in the now and like to read about it too. However if we ignore me and my likes for a moment, I can unequivocally say that if you do like these things then you will absolutely love this book.
The characters were both good, although Nathan was a bit frustrating with his issues regarding their relationship. I liked Clemance, she was quite fun, if a bit naive but managed to mature as the story progressed. The surroundings and situations were fantastically written, even if I was having to look up certain things on the Internet every through sentences to find out what they are (my husband seemed to know most of these already, which I have concluded means he was a pirate in a past life and that I really should have paid more attention in history lessons at school!).
While the theme/genre is not my thing this is a wonderful love story, and definitely a must read for all the Historical fans out there. As for me I will go back to being infuriatingly modern, yet not to be deterred I do have another Historical on my bookshelf so watch this space!
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