Four in Hand (Hardcover)

This is somewhat reminiscent of Georgette Heyer's Regency Buck, in that we have an arrogant, rakish lord who discovers that, along with the title he has recently inherited (in this case, Duke of Twyford), he has also inherited some wards. Here, his wards are four beautiful sisters, all unmarried, all wealthy and all, he knows, who will be the targets of every rake in town. He himself is hugely attracted to the eldest Miss Twinning, Caroline, and finds himself plotting to make her his mistress. Were she really his ward, it would be contrary to any sense of honour - even his honour - to seduce her, but under the terms of her parents' will, she is of age and so not his ward. Yet he pretends to her that she is, so that he'll be free to be with her without any suspicion.

There are four romances in this book but, as some other reviewers have noted, none of them is really satisfying. In an attempt to fit them all in, Laurens rushes through crucial developments - such as her heroes actually realising that they are in love with the women they're pursuing. Even Max - Twyford - whose story is the main one appears to fall in love without the readers ever realising how this momentous event happens. One minute he is pursuing Caroline in order to make her his mistress; the next (and this is quite early in the book) we see him musing that seducing her is no longer his primary aim. Why not? What made him fall in love? We don't know, because Laurens doesn't show us. Similarly with Lord Darcy, the suitor of Sarah Twinning: Sarah rejects his attempts at seduction, and he gives up, retiring to his Irish estate in order to show her that he's lost interest. And yet he comes back and pursues her again. Why? With what object?

This book does show signs of the pattern Laurens fell into with her Cynster books: her heroes all seem to fall in love too quickly, without any showing on Laurens' part of why and how this happens. Given the rushed nature of the individual love stories, which does leave readers unsatisfied, she would have been better advised to have made it a four-book series, culminating in Max and Caroline's story. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining read, and definitely far, far better than the majority of her later work.

wmr-uk

Laurens spend more time on the plotting of the three younger sisters to save Amanda from Ralph and get him together with Harriet that that was probably the only part that was essentially clear.

Quite confusing and missing as I say the middle of all the sisters stories. Not Laurens best effort but not bad if you want a book to read Sunday afternoon.

I was frequently confused when reading this book. Not only were there the four Twinning sisters (Caroline, Bella, Sarah, and Lizzie) and their beaux, but there was also Amanda Crowbridge, the Jennings girl (don't remember her first name), who were both friends of the Twinnings, and Sir Ralph. I found it difficult to remember who was pining away for whom, and which Twinning sister was which. Besides being confused, it was also difficult to develop any of the secondary romance plots to any great detail in 300 pages. I would have prefered it if the author would have devoted AT LEAST four different books (Amanda Crowbridge and the Jennings girl could have had their own books too!) to the Twinning sisters' exploits during their Season, rather than try to cram it all into one book, which left a lot of unanswered questions and too little background information. For example, although the Twinnings' experiences in America were hinted at, for being such a pivotal time in their lives, their experiences were not described in any detail.

Still, I can't write off the book because I was thoroughly confused through about half of it. The premise was good, and I did get a good laugh out of the antics of the sisters. I also had a great laugh at the expense of the poor beaux who were attempting to seduce the sisters without the tangles of marriage! The book is really good, just incredibly fast-paced and bare-bones when it comes to descriptions, previous histories, etc.