TEST
Nicole Locke’s Her Dark Knight’s Redemption is a romance that runs on traditional tropes, and whether or not you’ll enjoy the story depends on how much you like the tropes. I hoped for a little novelty but since this is what it is, finally I just focused on seeing it through to the end.
Reynold Warstone is the scion of an extremely wealthy and powerful family, but he lives in a fortress alone except for a group of mercenaries. Then a strange woman offers to take him to a baby he didn’t know he had, as long as he pays her. Throughout this scene, Reynold is always one instant away from murdering the woman, not just for being greedy and manipulative but because he can’t afford to allow his all-but-omniscient enemies to find out he has a child. Finally the woman threatens to tell someone and he slits her throat, after which the baby’s mother passes away too, leaving Reynold with his daughter.
He wants to keep her, but he has to protect her from his enemies. Then, in a market, he sees a young beggar woman nabbed for stealing bread, so he takes the woman into his fortress and tells her to pretend to be the child’s mother. I’m not sure why his enemies would believe he supports the children of random women, but that’s the setup.
The woman, Aliette, turns out to be perfect. She’s brave, kind, and an ace at childcare (though since the child never cries or has difficulty sleeping, perhaps that’s not saying much). Despite not knowing where her next meal is coming from, she cares for a found family consisting of three other homeless people. And of course she didn’t steal the bread. It was taken by her protégé, a plucky orphan, and she got caught trying to replace it. Unsurprisingly, she’s also gorgeous, and when Reynold sees her taking a bath, he’s stunned by her beauty.
But he can’t get involved, because enemies. However, he and Aliette keep butting heads over the issue of the child, and her freedom (she needs to go take care of her family), and what he’s not telling her, and so on. She calls him Darkness, while he thinks of her as the kind of pure, dazzling light that would scorch him like the sun burning Icarus’s wings off.
I normally enjoy enemies-to-lovers romances, but these two are stereotypes, with everyone else being adjuncts to them. During the fortnight that Aliette is penned up in the fortress, her family doesn’t do anything. That way, when she’s allowed to go feed them, they are found where she left them, in the same condition. Like Reynold’s child and his enemies, they’re props on the stage of someone else’s life, not characters in and of themselves.
Speaking of his often-mentioned-but-never-seen enemies, it turns out they’re his family. Which might have been interesting, because Reynold is so rich and powerful that ordinary people pose no challenge to him, but his family is in an aristocratic class of its own there. However, Reynold makes it clear that his parents not only hate each other to a murderous extent, but they torture their children as well. Literal, repeated torture. Fire is involved.
I wondered why his parents stayed married, why they had children, and why they allowed those children to survive, let alone grow to adulthood. They are the kind of villains for whom evil laughter was invented. However, readers hoping for an anti-hero in the Anne Stuart vein will be disappointed. Reynold isn’t at all drawn to the dark side of the Force. Other than the murder he commits at the start, where the narrative bends over backwards to show how much his victim deserved it, there’s nothing in the least disturbing about him, and once he opens up to Aliette, he talks in this florid way:
“The exquisiteness of your breasts, your hardened rose-tipped nipples that have peaked at my slight touch.”
The story isn’t devoid of potential. I like the fact that both Reynold and Aliette are people who were abandoned by their blood relatives and who now surround themselves with found families, plus they’re both take-charge types who feel responsible for everyone they care for. But the plot is so thin that they don’t have much to do. There’s some ongoing search for a famous jewel, but that obviously started in a previous novel and will continue in the next, and given how long it took me to slog through this, I won’t be trying any sequels. Her Dark Knight’s Redemption might be of interest to readers already invested in this series, but I was relieved when the story finally petered out.
Buy it at: Amazon or shop at your local independent bookstore
Visit our Amazon Storefront
Grade: C-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 09/02/20
Publication Date: 12/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I'm Marian, originally from Sri Lanka but grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in Georgia and Texas, ended up in Toronto. When I'm not at my job as a medical laboratory technologist, I read, write, do calligraphy, and grow vegetables in the back yard.
Related Reviews
Interesting that Harlequin wouldn’t allow the heroine to have stolen the loaf of bread herself. It worked for Victor Hugo and Jean Valjean.
“It worked for Victor Hugo and Jean Valjean.” Unfortunately, Harlequin isn’t classic French literature.
Harlequins, as much fun as they can be to read, are often a little too moralizing/preachy for my taste. It almost feels as though they are afraid to permit moral ambiguities or even redemption arcs. But maybe they do this because to do otherwise might alienate a big chunk of their fan base. While cartoonish at times, their protagonists’ staunch morals- even when such morals are difficult to justify- can be comforting to readers looking for a story with clear good guys and bad guys. Straying from their formula in category romance lines may pose too much risk for them.
Cr@p story but a really gorgeous cover!!
I agree. Harlequin has been on a roll with their covers lately. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s enough to save this mess of a story.
There’s nothing worse than getting teased with a dark story and it never coming off!
Especially when “dark” actually means “emotionally constipated”.
Thanks for slogging through yet another subpar story, Ms. Perera. I will definitely be giving this one a skip.
“I’m not sure why his enemies would believe he supports the children of random women, but that’s the setup.” Yeah, I think even a highly imaginative writer would have difficulty coming up with a somewhat plausible reason for this setup. I’m not saying it isn’t possible, but this seems a little too unbelievable even within the bounds of suspension of disbelief.
“The woman, Aliette, turns out to be perfect.” Oh, of course she is. We can’t expect romance readers to embrace a flawed heroine, can we?
“And of course she didn’t steal the bread. It was taken by her protégé, a plucky orphan, and she got caught trying to replace it.” I am seeing a lot of this sort of thing in Harlequins lately. Maybe it’s always been there, but there is a tendency to not allow morally ambiguous or desperate heroines (or even heroes) in their stories- unless there is a blindingly clear message beating the reader over the head. For example, I read a Harlequin Intrigue recently that dealt with characters infiltrating the Russian mafia. “Undercover Connection” was an interesting story, but I had to grit my teeth and plow forward when there were a few painfully obvious paragraphs thrown in here and there about how not *all* Russians are like that. Well, no shit! (Pardon my language.) I read this story to be entertained, not lectured to! Come on, Harlequin. Can’t you trust your 21st century readers enough to know that there is good and bad in every culture? Would it kill you to allow heroes and heroines who have committed crimes, like stealing a loaf of bread, to star in your stories? This goes back to what I have said before about Harlequin having a tendency to play it safe in their plots, characters, and setups. Oh, well! At least they have Avon and Carina Press in their portfolio to take more chances…
I could understand a determination to keep his child with him, despite the risk, if it was clear he had bonded with the child and was taking care of her. But this isn’t the case. In fact, the story makes it clear that until Aliette comes along, the child is literally starving because no one seems to know how or what to feed her. So his insistence on keeping the child just looked like a plot device to make the romance work.
“We can’t expect romance readers to embrace a flawed heroine, can we?”
For me, the best romances are those where both the hero and heroine overcome their flaws through their relationship. Flawed characters have room to grow and change, plus their flaws usually cause them to make decisions that complicate the plot. And I just find it impossible to suspend disbelief when a heroine grows up on the streets and is on the verge of starvation, but remains as ethically pure as she is physically untouched. I’m not saying every woman suffering under those circumstances has to take the Mary Balogh route and become a sex worker, but at least those feel more realistic.
“We can’t expect romance readers to embrace a flawed heroine, can we?” I hope it was obvious I meant that line sarcastically. :)
Totally agree with everything you said. Flaws make characters more realistic and give them something to work toward.