St. Raven [Large Print] (Hardcover)

Was the orgy too long? Yes. Other than that the book held me in suspense by the twisted path to retrieve the treasure, and the fact that we went so long without a "hard" love scene was a surprise. Imho the heroine (and almost everyone else) should have been more shocked by the statue (and etc.), but otherwise the period seemed correct. What we were left with were two fascinating, dynamic characters caught in a skewed and tangled web where they could be discovered at any moment.

Excellent escapist fare.

Ms. Beverly went to a great deal of trouble to highlight (with painstaking fequency) the differences between the hero and heroine, both in personalities and socially. I began to wonder why they thought they were friends and "so close" when much of the time they are disdaining and unsympathetic to each other's lifestyles and viewpoints. Even in romance novels, where love is able to leap a variety of tall obstacles in a single bound (it's why I love 'em!), there must must be a bit more plausability in the connection between the primary lovers of the tale. I think it's one small difference between an out and out fairy and a romance: the reader does require some details ironed out, not just wholesale acceptance of the thing foisted upon them.

Ms. Beverly is a talented author, so I began to suspect that she made the chapters-long orgy sound so dreadfully tedious deliberately so. But then I had to think that she might have accomplished the same goal (and wasted less paper and my time) by having a character from the book make this assessment as part of the narrative, but what do I know?

Although the ending was rather sweet, the most accurate analysis of "St Raven" takes place in the book itself when a bored female participant at the afore mentioned orgy is complaining to her less than enthusiastic partner: "Come on, get on with it or give over!" I concurred with an 'Amen!'

Cressida, in a desperate attempt to regain her family fortune, has agreed to accompany Lord Crofton to an orgy. In return for partnering him there and sacrificing her virginity to him, he has promised to return to her some ivory erotic statues - within one of which is hidden the precious gems which will recoup her father's gambling losses. She had a cunning plan to escape becoming Crofton's mistress too, or so she thought. But all of her plans are destroyed when the highwayman steals a kiss from her and then rides away with her into the night.

When she discovers that her abductor is the Duke of St Raven, she is no less furious. But Tris offers to help her regain the statuette. The only problem for Cressida is that she will need to accompany him in order to identify exactly which statuette it is that she needs. And so she has to dress as a houri and attend an orgy.

This is just the beginning of a chase around different parts of the country, at different times, in search of the statuette, and of course the beginning of Tris and Cressida's relationship. It's an exciting, and at times passionate, story, which also - unlike books by other authors set in the same era - faces head-on the realities of life within polite society. Being a duke involves sometimes onerous responsibility. It means not being able to behave exactly as one wishes in every matter. Being a young lady, especially one of not particularly good family, means that one cannot put so much as a little finger wrong, otherwise one is ruined. And never can the duke and the unfashionable gentlewoman meet on anything even approaching equal terms.

I didn't enjoy this book quite so much as Hazard, and I think part of that was the fact that Hazard focused solely on Anne and Race's relationship, while in St Raven there is the plot of the statuette and the sub-plot of the highwayman Le Corbeau. For me, these distracted from what I really wanted to read about, although I accept that Cressida and Tris could never have met except under this sort of circumstance. They didn't move in the same milieu. Cressida is the daughter of a nabob, a gentleman who made his fortune in trade in India and, although now knighted, is certainly not of haut ton. The family normally lives in provincial, unfashionable isolation in Matlock, Derbyshire.

And this is largely the conflict in the story: how can Cressida and Tris be together when he is so far above her in status? How could she cope with being a duchess when she hasn't been raised to it? It was interesting to see the other side of the coin immediately after Hazard, in which a duke's daughter finds a way to be allowed to marry a social nobody. I was pleased to see that the example of the Marquess of Arden, who married a governess (Beverley's An Unwilling Bride) was cited, although it appears that Beth Arden has had some problems being accepted into Society - going to tell us more at some point, Beverley?

It felt to me as if Tris fell in love with Cressida very quickly - too quickly, almost. Admittedly, the main conflict of the book related to their disparity in social standing, but I didn't really feel that I'd seen them fall in love - not in the way I saw Anne and Race or Lucien and Beth fall in love. This is probably the main reason why St Raven gets four stars rather than five.

I was also hoping for further glimpses of Anne and Race in this book; it seems as if they may well face problems of acceptance, and I wanted to know that their married life has begun well and that they have plenty of friends who will champion them - Tris being one, but the Rogues in addition. However, Anne and Race were only ever mentioned in passing. I would love to see the two couples meet!

Finally, who is Caradoc Lyne? He's clearly a friend of Tris's, and possibly someone who travelled on the Continent with him. He appears to be employed by Tris in some capacity, or at least dependent on him; Tris gives him things to do and asks him to find things out. His role in Tris's life is never explained. Will we see him again? The hero of a future novel, perhaps? This dedicated Jo Beverley reader is waiting with her fingers crossed!