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“The Rarest Blooms” ~ Book One

Daphne Joyes has a flower business called “The Rarest Blooms.” She is able to grow flowers in her large green house year around and sells them to florists in London. Daphne is a widow and has opened her home for women who need a sanctuary. At the present time her cousin, Audrianna, and two other women Celia, and Lizzie, are living with her, and all contribute to their upkeep as best as they can.

Audrianna’s father committed suicide after a scandal about defective gun powder furnished British troops in their fight against Napoleon. Horatio Kelmsleigh worked in the Ordinance Department, and signed off on all shipments of munitions. Audrianna believes that one man alone hounded her father until he believed there was no hope of clearing himself. That man was Lord Sebastian Summerhays whose older brother was severely wounded in the war on the Peninsula. After the humiliation of Horatio’s death and the persecution of Summerhays, Audrianna’s fiancée asked to be released from their betrothal, and she left her mother and sister and moved in with her widowed cousin, Daphne. While trying to clear her father’s reputation Audrianna and Summerhays are discovered in a very compromising situation, and even though he could walk away unscathed, he convinces Audrianna to marry him. It takes a lot of persuasion and promises, but she agrees. She quickly becomes friends with her invalid brother-in-law, and rivals with her controlling mother-in-law. Summerhays wants to prove one way or another the truth about Horatio because he might be falling in love with Audrianna.

Madeline Hunter’s stories are deliciously addictive, and her characters are touchingly human that you care about and want good things to happen to, and for, them. Situations resulting from the war left both protagonists with life changing circumstances and in their way they are as wounded as the actual casualties. However, they would not have found their soul-mate any other way. RAVISHING IN RED is poignantly beautiful and expressively wonderful. Future outings in this series promise to be just as terrific.




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