The Lady Risks All Review

Title: The Lady Risks All

Author: Stephanie Laurens

Date of Publication: September 25, 2012

Formats Available: Paperback, E-Book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: Neville Roscoe, notorious and enigmatic, lives resolutely outside society, bound only by his own code of honor - until challenged by his desire for the one woman he cannot have.

Miranda Clifford is a lady imprisoned by rigid respectability - until tempted by a passion beyond her power to deny.

Flung together in peril, through danger and intrigue, they discover a love impossible to ignore ... or keep.

My Review:

One of my closest friends constantly talks about how much she loves Stephanie Laurens novels so I decided to see what her raving was all about and try one. I didn't want to get involved in a long series so when I saw that The Lady Risks All was a standalone novel I decided to try it. Unfortunately the more I read the less I understood why my friend enjoyed these novels so much, maybe her series books are better but I wasn't very impressed by my first novel by Laurens.

The novel starts off interestingly enough, Roscoe's family has potentially been cast into ruin and now he must find a way to save his family's name. During this time he comes up with a "plan" that will save his family and keep them from being ruined in society but we never actually find out what this plan was. During the entire novel I was waiting for it to come back up and for more explanations to be given. While the "plan" he had did come up several times toward the end what the plan actually entailed was never mentioned, only how it saved his family. I constantly felt like I was missing something and I found myself flipping back through the book, trying to find something I missed.

I liked Miranda and Roscoe well enough although they were both very stereotypical. Miranda was difficult with a mind of her own and Roscoe was gruff and possessive, both personalities can be fun in their own way but the way Miranda and Roscoe were written made them seem a little flat. Along with a shallow romance and a weaker plot I just couldn't get myself into their characters. I liked them separately but together I just didn't think their relationship worked the way it was supposed to.

Perhaps the number one thing that annoyed me about this novel was the half done plot. Two major parts of the story were Miranda's brother getting kidnapped and Roscoe's plan to save his family. However, after the first half of the book Miranda's brother was already found and in the end nobody is ever sure why he was kidnapped. The second half of The Lady Risks All was all wordy talking and no action. By the end of the novel I was so sick of reading about Miranda and Roscoe thinking about how they needed to stay apart and then falling into each other's arms I was more than ready to be done with the novel.

Historical romance novels are always hit and miss for me and I would have to say that The Lady Risks All was a miss. Fans of historical romance may be disappointed by the lack of plot and shallow romance. Maybe her series books are better but I just wasn't impressed with this particular novel.

3/5