THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION

Author: Pam Rosenthal ISBN: 0451219473 9/2006 HISTORICAL Publisher: NAL/SIGNET ECLIPSE
Time Period: Regency

As the children of feuding Derbyshire landowners, Mary Penley and Kit Stansell were supposed to be enemies. Too willful to be bound by their families' prejudices, they became secret friends instead—and then much more than friends. When they eloped, they thought they'd put rivalry and contention behind them. But neither ardor nor marriage could overpower their own restless natures.... Nine years later, Kit is a rising star in the military, while Mary has made her way in a raffish intellectual society of poets and reformers. A chance meeting reignites their passion. But they live for very different values: Kit wants to maintain order in the land, Mary to challenge the repressions of the day. Their differences are put aside when Kit uncovers a political conspiracy that threatens all of England. Amid danger and disillusionment, Kit and Mary rediscover the bonds that are stronger than time, the selves who have never really parted—and the love that is their destiny....

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Kudos to Pam Rosenthal for writing a story that's both original and a bold look inside what was considered a "conventional" marriage of the ton. It's the sort of marriage that most writers of Georgian and Regency romances shy away from. You know the one I mean. This is not your standard Regency romance book marriage where the hero never strays, completely reforms from a rake to a family man, and if any kind of separation is involved, he stays totally faithful to his wife, regardless of how long it takes them to be reunited. No, the marriage portrayed in THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION isn't that one. Not by a long shot!

Instead, Rosenthal dives into this "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" character study without leaving anything out: adultery, drinking, gambling, multiple affairs on both sides, the pain of separation, and yes, even an STD is mentioned here. It's an honest inside look at a marriage that, perhaps, should never have been. But it's also a brilliantly written telling of how two people who are obviously the loves of each other's lives, can come to accept, overcome, and leave behind a painful past to begin again. When someone says that love conquers all, THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION is a prime example.

While there are multiple relationship sub-storylines running parallel to each other inside this story, it's the one between Mary and Kit that is front and center, and the most challenging. Childhood friends, they're not the young and carefree twenty-somethings they were when they first married so long ago. Having been together just one year of their marriage, it's now nine years later with both having lived separate lives. Kit is no longer the young pup who bowed under peer pressure to drink, gamble and whore around on his wife in order to live a "conventional" marriage. He's gone off to war, matured and returned an older and wiser man. When he espies his estranged wife upon his return, he knows that he still loves her, will always love her, and wants her back, forever.

But Mary's changed, too. She's no longer the innocent young woman who waited up nights for her wayward husband and then spitefully slept with his best friend to pay him back. She's had her affairs, too, but now she wants a divorce because she's found a man she thinks can give her the life of peace she's longed for. Besides, tigers don't change their stripes, do they? And no matter what her feelings are for Kit, the hurt of the things that passed between them still lingers. They're also on opposite ends of spectrum both in their political beliefs and the company they keep. Can they really overcome all these obstacles, and can she trust him enough to let him into her heart again? Forever?

This is not a romance for those who expect virginal heroines and heroes without faults. Instead, it's an erotic, romantic, sensitive and provocative story with fascinating relationships and characters, set inside a richly illustrated historical backdrop amid turbulent times. If you're looking for a Georgian or Regency romance that's original and out-of-the-ordinary, then THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION is a must read!

Nancy Davis