ARC Book Review: Lord of Darkness – Elizabeth Hoyt

Lord of Darkness
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Series: Maiden Lane #5
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
My Rating:

Summary:

 
First Sentence: The night Godric St. John saw his wife for the first time since their marriage two years previously, she was aiming a pistol at his head.

I received an eARC through NetGalley. Thank you!

My Review:

I just love the cover of Lord of Darkness. Who would have ever thought that that particular shade of orange-pink and turquoise could ever go together, match, and end up quite stunning together? I was also quite curious about Lord of Darkness before I read it and was very eager to see how the story would go.

I first read about Godric St. John in the first book of the Maiden Lane series, Wicked Intentions. There, he was a sad, desperate husband because his wife Clara was sick in bed dying and there was nothing Godric could do nothing about it. Margaret Reading, in Thief of Shadows, the fourth book in the Maiden Lane series, was in love, until her lover was murdered and died. Lord of Darkness starts off after Godric and Margaret eventually married, but was living apart in different countries.

Lord of Darkness didn’t go in the direction I expected it to go. I thought that almost the entire book would be focused on Margaret chasing the Ghost of St. Giles – aka Godric – finding out his identity, and it would go on from there, but the book wasn’t like that at all. Instead, Lord of Darkness took care of that part pretty quickly and focused on Margaret and Godric’s growing relationship and how they learned to trust, and eventually love, each other.

I like how Lord of Darkness had two separate mystery cases going on, one focused on Godric’s personal goal and the other focused on Margaret’s personal goal, and later, the two cases somehow goes together.

I enjoyed reading about Margaret’s attempts to get what she wanted from Godric. It was so funny that I felt sorry for poor Godric, completely unaware of what his wife was up to. It was also cute how they slowly learned more about each other after being apart for two years and slowly, but surely, starting to fall in love. Their love story wasn’t rushed, messy, or completely mushy, instead, it was bittersweet and will tug on your heartstrings.

The only thing I wished Lord of Darkness had was Margaret’s age. (I don’t know if they will have Margaret’s age in the final copy, I’m only reading the ARC.) The book hinted several times that Margaret and Godric had a sort-of huge age difference, but have not revealed Margaret’s age, only Godric’s, leaving me very curious. I wonder if we will ever know. (Or maybe Margaret’s age was revealed in the previous books.)

I’m really looking forward to reading the next book in the Maiden Lane series, Duke of Midnight, which is about the Earl of Wakefield Maximus and Artemis. I wonder how that relationship will develop, especially after the earl’s stinging off-handed remark about Artemis, which made me really angry. November 2013 can’t come fast enough.