In Jo Beverley's A Lady's Secret, Robin, the Earl of Huntersdown, is returning to England from Versailles when he comes across a swearing nun. Convinced that the beauty in nun costume is an adventuress, he offers to provide her an escort looking forward to some amusement over a long journey.

Petra D'Averio or Sister Immaculata, aforementioned nun, is at wits' end. Rejected by Milanese society since she is the bastard of an English lord, she has no friends to support her after her mother's death. She needs to find her father before her old lover Count Ludovico, can capture her. After meeting carefree and rakish Robin she's unsure if she's leaping from the frying pan into the fire. But, she accepts Robin's help and the rest is a sort of comedy of errors on the journey with villainous Italians, murderous peasants, a papillon dog and a hero and heroine whose secrets are revealed over the course of the journey.

The book was likable and entertaining enough that I didnt stop reading. It has some humorous moments, fun banter between the principals and a clever spin on an old nursery rhyme (Who Killed Cock Robin). But, I'm a bit tired of all the stereotypical contrivances of this genre. And I'm sick of rakes who spend the entire book lusting after the heroine or pages full of sexual innuendo only to suffer from instant regret once the deed is done.

The hero, Robin or Cock Robin is one of those beta heroes I think. Much like the crowing cock, he makes grand promises to the heroine to protect her and falls flat. Often. His only saving grace is he is charming. Petra is a good character, she's gutsy and well able to take care of herself. Since, Petra saves herself each time, it beats me why she is in love with Mr. Cocky. And then we have a married villain pursuing Petra across Italy, France and England only to make her his mistress. Illogical, much? Even Petra wonders why.

I've read Ms. Beverly's medieval romances before and they were good reads. If you want to start off with her, I'd say pick those up.

Rating: 3 / 5

Red Lily is the third part of the In the Garden trilogy. Read the reviews for the first and second parts.

It's almost 6 months after the events of Black Rose. Things have settled down enough at the In the Garden nursery for Roz and Mitch to get married too. Hayley Phillips, Roz's poor cousin, many times removed, is feeling irritable and anxious under the June Tennessee sun. And downright hot whenever she comes across Roz's son, Harper. After circling each other for 2 years, Hayley finally makes her move, to find that Harper has been interested all along.

And of course, as with the previous books, the elements of love and passion combine to bring out the ghost's insanity, this time centered on Hayley and Harper. But, the ghost has learned new tricks, she can now possess Hayley, and she soon finds that she likes inhabiting a body ... a lot!! Can the 6 friends work together fast enough, to find Amelia's grave and ensure she gets the burial she deserves, before she seriously injures Harper and Hayley. And, to do that they have to find out what exactly happened at Harper House, way back in 1892.

Meh. That's my feeling after reading this book. When a ghost is more interesting than the primary couple in the romance, that's what you can expect. Just ... meh.

I think my problem was that even after 2 books, Harper and Hayley just weren't all that interesting to me. Hayley is very young, a great character in the other books, energetic and fun, but here she quickly gets overly emotional. The type who if taken to a nice hotel, gabs about being Cinderella and how no one has ever done anything as nice for her before etc etc, entirely too talkative, even for a book. And who says woo-hoo and awesome a lot.

Harper, it's difficult to get a handle on him. He's a loner, preferring his garden to people, but then you have him involved with a steady stream of women and little bits of sophistication like him sipping wine (sexily) when on a date with Hayley thrown in and he seemed too much a mix of all other Roberts heroes - Roarke, Logan etc for me to understand him. Like any young couple, they spend the majority of the book having misunderstandings and fighting, and that part seemed real to me. The way they resolved the misunderstandings, hmmm not so much.

With the trilogies I read before, Roberts made sure to keep the most interesting couple last, I remember the tension between the vampire and the other-world Princess to be so great that I practically inhaled two books to get the third in the Circle trilogy. I understand why they were last here, after having a baby in the first book Hayley obviously needs time to be interested in a relationship. But, while they were good side characters, they don't work so well at center stage. Add in that the final scene with the ghost was pretty cliche, straight out of a lot of horror books/ movies and I was quite disappointed. I always expect more out of Nora.

But, if you take the overall story binding three books together, you realize what a master Roberts is with pacing. The ghost which seems benevolent in the first part, gets truly unhinged and malevolent in the next two and Roberts keeps feeding us information about her along with the main romances without missing a beat. And the thing that I love best about her books, the family aspect, towards the end you truly get how these people have all come together to be one big, extended family. Characters are so well-defined that scenes like Hayley talking about Harper to his mother, which would have seemed eeky, have exactly the right voice.

And you have to admire Roberts ability to tie together all the gardening analogies with the story and character arcs of women from different generations. And her knowledge on the subject, even if I got cross-eyed reading about all the fecund pistils and swollen stamens. Ok, I'll stop now.

So, overall as a trilogy, it's about average. Do yourself a favor and dont read the books back to back. Sometimes the sentence structure and language can seem very repetitive.

-----------------

Series Order
1. Blue Dahlia
2. Black Rose
3. Red Lily