Surrender to the Devil-Lorraine Heath

Surrender to the Devil
Lorraine Heath
Avon, Jul 2009, $6.99
ISBN: 9780061733994

She and her two friends Earl Lucien “Luke” Langdon (see IN BED WITH THE DEVIL) and club owner Jack Dodger (see BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND DESIRE) escaped London's mean streets and Feagan’s den of child thieves and urchin con artists. Whereas the guys have become accustomed to Polite Society, Frannie Darling (as she calls herself because of her earliest memory of Feagan calling her that) hates the Ton; she prefers the slums of the rookeries rescuing orphans. She earns a living as Jack's bookkeeper.

Earl Sterling Mabry meets and falls in love with Frannie. She is attracted to him too, but prefers to pick his pocket instead. Haughty especially when he wants something and he WANTS her, he pursues her with due diligence, but has no idea she reciprocates though she loathes the idea of loving an arrogant aristocrat. As they fall in love, they get in trouble with vile criminal elements that leave them fighting to survive, but Frannie assumes she caused the assaults somehow when Sterling conceals from his beloved he is the prime source of their danger.

The latest Oliver Twist twist is a fantastic entry in a clever well written saga that stars the latest adult version of one of Feagan’s child thieves and the Earl who loves his Frannie Darling. The cast once again makes this fast paced tale super fun to read as Loraine Heath provides another excellent Victorian romantic suspense that hooks audience from the moment Frannie out-arrogance the super conceited Earl.

Harriet Klausner