Christmas Angel (Zebra Historical Romance)

Leander Knollis, Earl of Charrington, didn't appear in the two earlier books, but he was certainly mentioned as a Rogue absent at war. In this book, set a few months after Lucien and Beth's marriage, Leander comes home and, thanks to the war having brought him to a realisation of his own mortality, decides that he really needs to marry and start his own family. However, a few weeks in London shows him only too clearly that he can't choose a bride from the available young women there. For one thing, none of them interest him. For another, they keep falling in love with him! While he can feel nothing more than lukewarm liking for any of them.

Not that he understands why this is the case; as he says to Beth Arden, he's not particularly handsome. And, in fact, standing next to the very handsome Lucien, he's nothing much to look at. Though Beth admits - and this is a very clever device, Jo, using the lens of Beth's thoughts to show us what's attractive about Leander - that there is something compelling about him. And Beth also tells us that what is most likely to appeal to women is the impression Leander seems to give of being alone and emotionally in pain. Which he is - except that he doesn't recognise it.

Leander's problem is that his upbringing has led him to see romantic love as destructive and not worth the emotional investment. Added to this, he doesn't see himself as capable of falling in love. So, he tells his friends, he wants to marry someone suitable, someone he can like, but who won't fall in love with him.

Who better, Beth thinks, than the Weeping Widow? Judith Rossiter, widowed a little over a year since and with two children, who is well known to have been so in love with her husband that she's still grief-stricken. She still wears unrelieved black. So Leander proposes to Judith, secure in the knowledge that she's not going to fall in love with him.

Judith, we learn, ceased to love her husband not long after they were married. The only reason she still wears black is that she can't afford anything else! She's very puzzled by this proposal from a nobleman five years younger than her, and at first thinks he's mad. But events lead her to accept his proposal - and now all she has to do is prevent him from finding out that she does actually have strong feelings for him after all...

What stops me giving this book five stars, as I gave some of the other Rogue books, is that while I enjoyed it very much I felt that something was missing. The romance was very, very understated; while there are some lovely scenes in this book, such as some of the kissing scenes, I didn't actually feel that I *saw* Judith and Leander fall in love with each other. I almost felt that Leander wasn't so much falling in love with Judith as he was with the idea of a family. So that wasn't quite as fulfilling as the first two books in the series, or The Devil's Heiress.

However, one thing I loved about this book was the chance to get a glimpse - well, more than a glimpse - of my favourite heroes and their partners. The book begins with Beth and Lucien at Hartwell, just six weeks after the end of AUB; we see that the promise of a very happy marriage which we were left with in AUB is definitely coming true. And Lucien and Beth play major roles in the first part of the book. Then, towards the end of the book, we get lots of Nicholas and Eleanor (and Arabel), proving that the happy ending of An Arranged Marriage was a lasting one. I do love encountering characters from earlier books later in the series!

Definitely one to add to your Jo Beverley collection!