A Wicked Encounter

Title & buy link: A Wicked Encounter
Author: SammyJo Hunt
Cover Artist: Reese Dante
Publisher: Silver Publishing
Genre: M/M historical (alternate history)
Length: Novella (149 pages, approx 32,000 words)
Rating: 2 stars out of 5

A guest review by Leslie S

Review summary: Solid descriptive writing can’t save this book from a selfish cry-baby hero and a pointless plot.

Blurb
Christopher Allwyne, Duke of Bellwood, stood to inherit a vast fortune. Still reeling from the loss of his parents and most recently, his Aunt Polly, the Duchess of Bellwood, the young noble found himself traveling in the dark of night to oversee Her Grace’s funeral proceedings and to attend the reading of his aunt’s will. Along the way, his carriage suffers a devastating accident, and a dark stranger comes to his aid and rescue. The Marquis Evan de Lombard, rich French nobleman, takes an instant interest in the handsome Christopher. Sharing a wicked encounter shortly after meeting, things look promising as love blooms between them. That is, until the Marquis reveals his true identity and purpose.

Once Christopher knows the truth, will he ever be able to forgive Evan and love him, despite the man’s indiscretions? Torn apart by dishonesty, can love win out over betrayal and rise to the occasion, reuniting them for a lifetime of happiness? The cost for true love could be a price neither one is willing to pay.

Review
Before the story begins, there’s a note stating that the author has taken certain liberties with historical fact. The book is set in 1792 and same-sex marriage, though unusual, is permitted. British inheritance laws, always a tricky subject at the best of times, have been simplified, allowing an illegitimate child to claim an estate. Now as any of you who have read my reviews before will know, I’m not averse to fantasy alternate history scenarios, but in order for me to feel fully immersed in them, I have to believe in them from the start. They have to be well written but mainly I need to be able to believe that, for a quirk of fate, the alternate history could really have happened. In other words, I want something fully realised, I don’t want some wallpaper historical where modern guys play dress-up in old-fashioned clothes.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I got.

Christopher, the young, orphaned, and newly elevated Duke of Bellwood is on his way to attend to his beloved late aunt’s funeral and see to her business arrangements. He inherited the title from Aunt Polly and now stands to inherit more wealth. His journey is interrupted by a thunderstorm and his carriage ends up in a ditch. He’s injured and is rescued by a mysterious Frenchman, Evan the Marquis de Lombard, who takes Christopher to an inn to recover. Christopher has never seen such a gorgeous man before, and though he’s a bit embarrassed by the fact that they have to share a bed at the inn, he’s too tired to protest.

During the night, Christopher has a bad dream. Evan comforts him and this turns into sex. Evan is conflicted because his mother had an affair with the previous Duke of Bellwood, Christopher’s uncle. Though Evan is illegitimate, he is the previous duke’s oldest son and therefore can claim the title as long as he has documented proof of the circumstances of his birth, which he does via a letter from his mother confessing the truth, plus some financial documents. However, when Christopher learns of this, he’s understandably shocked and horrified, not least because it means he’s been falling in love and having sex with his cousin. Evan doesn’t see a problem with any of this and proposes marriage.

Christopher is so appalled that he rejects Evan and spends the night crying in his room. The next day is the reading of the will, and Aunt Polly leaves the majority of the estate and fortune to Christopher. Evan contests the will and causes a stir when he reveals that he’s the previous duke’s illegitimate son. He stands to inherit everything that went to Christopher but announces his intentions to marry Christopher and share the title and fortune equally. Christopher is still upset and hurt by what’s happened and doesn’t feel that he can trust his cousin/lover. Then he’s distracted by a letter from his not-quite-fiancee-but-they-have-an-understanding, Lady Kathryn, who’s arriving with her family for a visit (clearly flouting the conventional rules regarding the period of mourning, but whatever).

During Kathryn’s visit, Christopher finds himself unable to say no when her parents decide on a wedding date and start making plans. Even when Kathryn discovers Christopher and Evan together, she pushes the fact aside and insists on the wedding going ahead. Christopher decides it’s better for him to give up his claim on the Bellwood estate. Instead he will marry Kathryn and forget about Evan and be content with his own fortune.

Kathryn invites Evan to the engagement party, and Evan turns up and whisks Christopher away to a balcony. Their passions get the better of them and they make love… and Kathryn sees them. How will they deal with the resulting scandal?

What worked for me:
I liked the author’s writing style. She has a nice turn of phrase and the descriptions were well done. There were just enough details of setting to make the scenes vivid.

What didn’t work for me:
Honestly? The rest of it was a mess.

On the first page we have Christopher, driving in the pouring rain in a carriage. It’s described as a phaeton, which as any fan of Regency romances will know (although technically this isn’t a Regency as the date places it in the Georgian period), is an open-topped vehicle and not an enclosed carriage as stated in the book. The author already stated some changes had been made to historical accuracy, but this one just seemed to be an error. There’s a few more things like this but this is a review, not at errata note.

There’s four pages of infodump on who Christopher is, his family background, and what he’s doing. I began to drift off. There’s nothing worse than starting a story in an exciting setting and then having to read through a bunch of backstory that would serve the book better if it was placed elsewhere. The same thing happened once we were in Evan’s POV. If I hadn’t been reading it for review, I’d have stopped by this point.

Evan is not a French name. Neither is Leslee. There are lots of perfectly nice French names, so why give a Frenchman a Welsh name and give a Frenchwoman an oddly-spelled Scottish name? Also, Evan is the Marquis of Lombard, which is in Italy, not France. I just don’t understand why this is such a mess.

InstaLove. I mean really, really InstaLove. Lust I could buy, especially as Christopher’s suffered a traumatic experience, but the next day both guys are declaring themselves in love and that’s simply too fast to be believable.

The characterisation is one-dimensional. Christopher is a weepy chick-with-a-dick and Evan is very shallow. Both are incredibly selfish. Christopher gets more irritating as the book goes on, culminating in his utter spinelessness when he allows himself to be coerced into agreeing to the marriage and hopes ‘desperately for some sort of miraculous reprieve…’ – except the reprieve takes a couple of months to arrive and in that time Christopher goes ahead with the wedding arrangements and the plans for the formal engagement party, without once giving any consideration to the feelings of his bride-to-be or her family. Any thoughts he has of Kathryn are of the ‘she’s like a sister to me’ variety, and though he ‘loves’ her, he’s still prepared to be a selfish, unthinking moron and destroy her life and leave her family’s pride in tatters. Christopher has no sense of responsibility, and yet we’re supposed to believe he’s a capable lawyer (at first he’s described as a barrister and later he says he’s an attorney, which under English law are two completely different things, so maybe he’s not that capable) and he sits in the Cabinet.

The pacing is all over the place. The first part of the story takes place over four days – first meeting to proposal of marriage to huffy rejection. Then there’s a gap of a couple of months before the guys meet again. The last two chapters are irrelevant and add nothing to the plot. In my opinion the book should have ended at the close of Chapter 6, because everything that comes afterwards is devoid of tension and seems to be there only for a couple more gratuitous sex scenes and protestations of undying devotion, and – most bizarre of all – they go out looking for a Christmas tree. This is the Georgian period, remember, and Christmas trees weren’t popularised in the UK until the reign of Queen Victoria.

In alternate history stories I want to know why history has changed and what impact the change has on society – in this case, why is same-sex marriage legal, what does it bring to society? Especially when the characters involved are amongst the highest of nobility, which has its own set of rules. Sadly there’s no attempt made to explain the historical changes or even to examine their impact – it’s simply a convenient plot device, and it feels like a lazy one at that.

I did like the author’s voice and if she writes a contemporary story I would read it. Unfortunately A Wicked Encounter didn’t work for me on many levels and I cannot recommend it.