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Author Reviews
In My Wildest Fantasies
Julianne MacLean
ISBN-10: 0060819499
ISBN-13: 9780060819491
Avon, November 2007, 384 pp
Pembroke Palace Series Book #1
Victorian Era
$6.99 (US) $9.99 (CDN)
Reviewed by Laurel
November 2007
“Wed by Christmas or lose your inheritance to the London Horticultural Society.” Devon Sinclair stared in shock at his father while he madly and frantically told him about a family curse and how to end it. He and his 3 brothers had to get married and he must produce an heir. Three years ago Devon left his family after a family scandal caused a irreparable rift between him and his brother Vincent. With tensions tight between the two brothers, Devon must set about procuring a bride starting at the costume ball and the introduction to Lady Letitia a Duke’s daughter and hopeful match striking one marriage off his fathers list. As the thought occupies his mind at the ball, his gaze his directed on the remarkable woman dressed as Helen of Troy. He feels he has met her before, recognizing a familiar spark of desire. The last time he felt this way was four years ago when one woman deemed him her hero…
That was woman was Lady Rebecca Newland. Four years ago he saved her and her father from their runaway carriage and after seeing them safely home he never saw her again. In those four years she has had some very erotic fantasies about Devon while reading the scandalous and shocking diary she found of two lovers buried in her families’ barn. When her father announces that she is going to marry their neighbour Mr. Rushton on her twenty-first birthday, she concocts a scheme with her aunt to see her married to someone else before that ever happens. Starting at the ball held at Pembroke Castle, the home of her hero. She is hoping that Devon will recognize her and once again become her hero and protector by landing him as her husband.
IN MY WILDEST FANTASIES is an exciting, evocative and a sensually absorbing read as Devon and Rebecca explore their feelings and sexual attraction to each other, something both were quite unprepared for. Devon is determined and set in his ways about not wanting any responsibility of another person. Marriage is simply a business, but when he finds out Rebecca had ulterior motives for marrying him, he is stunned for the very last thing he wanted is staring him the face, making him confront his scandalous past. Rebecca is more than angry at Devon for his cool cavalier attitude that it makes for some heated and electrifying moments between the two as she does the opposite of what he is expecting her to do. Julianne MacLean writes conflict well and resolves the conflict in a rational and mature manner between the characters that is refreshing and encouraging to the reader.
As the first novel in a series, IN MY WILDEST FANTASIES introduces the readers to a whole family of characters, secrets, scandals and surprises setting up for future novels in the series about the remaining brothers who have yet to get married. I thought their father was an adorable character as Julianne laid the foundation of the Pembroke Palace series making all the characters appealing but mysterious enough to want to know more about them. I look forward to reading Vincent’s story and the trouble that is eluded too in this novel. IN MY WILDEST FANTASIES is a novel that any romance reader will devour and enjoy.