Book Review of “Spellbound", by Regency Author Jaimey Grant

I first became intrigued with the character of Raven Emerson when I read Jaimey Grant’s Regency romance, Betrayal. An accomplished actress and the hero’s mistress when that volume began, Raven showed herself to be intelligent, spirited, and compassionate, even as she found herself eventually cast off in favor of the hero’s new love. Rather than reacting with the jealousy one might expect from a scorned mistress, Raven responded instead with such dignity and proved herself a woman of such warmth, that when I discovered Ms. Grant had written a follow-up volume especially for Raven, I could not wait to read it!

Spellbound is that volume. Spellbound is filled with mysteries. Why does the Duke of Windhaven, who has hired Raven to pose, first as his fiancé and then as his wife, react with such terror when he sees Raven draw too close to the lake on his family estates? What is the truth about the missing noblewoman Raven is pretending to be, and what mysteries lie in Raven’s own past that have been hidden from her since childhood? And will the answers to these mysteries unite Raven and Windhaven together in love or tear them apart forever? Will the Raven I grew to love in Betrayal finally find her own happy ending?

You don’t expect me to answer all these questions, do you? You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out! I will say that I found the book difficult to put down, staying up later than I should have to read “just a few more words” in a new chapter, every time I finished an old one.

The only thing that glitched a bit with me was the sudden appearance in the story of a series of characters I felt I was expected to know but didn’t, causing some confusion in a few scenes. I suspect this is because I read Ms. Grant’s titles out of chronological order in my impatience to read Raven’s story. I knew there was a volume between Betrayal and Spellbound in which Raven played a part, but I skipped over it to go straight to Raven’s romance. Although events in that middle volume are effectively summarized in Spellbound, the background of some characters who may have appeared in that or another of Ms Grant’s volumes was not always explained, leaving me, as I said, at a bit of a loss. To preempt such confusion for others, I would advise readers therefore to read Ms Grant’s books chronologically. (You can find the chronological order on Ms Grant’s website at http://www.jaimeygrant.com/ under her Excerpts link.)

Aside from that, I greatly enjoyed Spellbound, and I must add that the last four paragraphs of the closing chapter left me with a smile, while the final line of the epilogue I felt was exceptionally eloquent.

Click here to read my author interview with Jaimey Grant. (Sorry, the giveaway is over. :-) )