Thursday, July 12, 2012

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens















Viscount Breckenridge & Heather Cynster's book




Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (The Cynster Sisters Trilogy #1)

By Stephanie Laurens

Book Blurb:

Three heros, three rescues, three weddings.

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Miss Heather Cynster


...but not before she encounters kidnappers, danger, and a daring rescue at the hands of Viscount Breckenridge.


Determined to hunt down her very own hero, one who will sweep her off her feet and into wedded bliss, and despairing of finding him in London's staid ballrooms, Heather Cynster steps out of her safe world and boldly attends a racy soiree.

But her promising hunt is ruined by the supremely interfering Viscount Breckenridge, who whisks her out of scandal-and straight into danger when a mysterious enemy seizes her, bundles her into a coach, and conveys her out of London.

Now it's up to the notorious Breckenridge to prove himself the hero she's been searching for all along..




How refreshing to read a romance novel story unlike any other that I had read before. I really enjoyed the kidnapping premise of the story. The cover has nothing to do with the book at all. At least the heroine did have blonde hair. 

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue is my first Stephanie Laurens' book. I know pretty amazing considering that this book was her 45th book. Yep, I need to get a bit caught up. As Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue is book 1 in a trilogy, I will move on to book 2, In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster right away. I am very curious to read how this series continues. 
Extra bonus art available on Goodreads

It is very obvious that this story and the Cynster sisters are a spin off from another Cynster family series. I did find myself often confused at the size of this family and referenced the family tree chart provided at the beginning of the book often. There are not a lot of updates about those previous family members but they're mentioned a lot. I don't like to read books out of order so I'm on the fence on how I feel about this being a spin off book and that was my first to encounter reading about the Cynster sisters. Granted I did feel I could read Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue as the stand alone (or the beginning of the spin off). It is just my own comfort level of needing to start at the beginning. I liked Stephanie Laurens' writing style enough that I just may check out the other books or at least, the first few of the Cynster family beginning books. 

The love scenes in Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue are very emotionally descriptive. I don't mean sexually descriptive like an erotic book but rather highly focused on the feelings and emotions the protagonists were experiencing. Sometimes they were a bit too descriptive that I just wanted the scene to be over so I could move onto the story itself. Which I loved.

As mentioned in the book blurb above, Heather Cynster gets kidnapped right in front of the Viscount at the very beginning of the book. It was an awesome chase as Breckenridge follows in pursue of the kidnappers. I could picture the author having a map of England and Scotland right in front of her as she wrote out the travels and towns the villains whisked Heather through in the horse carriage. I have to admit though I was a little confused as to who was actually driving the carriage. From what I pictured, Heather was inside a carriage with the two male kidnappers and a lone female kidnapper. As they traveled from town to town I wondered exactly how they were doing it.  Was it just a coach carriage for hire and different driver each time?? I seemed to miss that part of the explanation along the way. 

Stephanie Laurens offered great explanations on why Heather didn't try to escape when Breckenridge finally caught up to them. I really enjoyed this part of the story. The secret sneaky rendezvous and the methods of communicating was a lot of fun to read. 

It was also a joy to read how Breckenridge and Heather, who previously mildly tolerated each other, started to fall in love with each other. Easily my favourite part of the entire story. It was slow and the build up including the simple act of walking together holding hands like a team, made me melt a little. The over the top demand of Heather wanting the words, "I love you" declared frustrated me. As a woman I completely understood that she only wanted to marry for love but it felt a like a record stuck on repeat. 

The mystery of who the Laird from Scotland was who orchestrated and planned the kidnapping was not solved and as a reader, there is little we know about his story. What was shared was definitely curious and that is why I am about to open, In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster

Teasers: midnight rendezvous, long long walks, hidden in the Vale, bull gorge 





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