Secret Desires Of A Gentleman by Laura Lee Guhrke

Title: Secret Desires Of A Gentleman
Author: Laura Lee Guhrke

Type: Historical Romance
Published: 2008

Blurb:
Once Upon a Time…
Maria Martingale was going to elope. But Phillip Hawthorne, Marquess of Kayne, put a stop to those plans when he learned his younger brother intended to marry a cook’s daughter. Now twelve years later, Maria discovers that the man who holds her fate in his hands is none other than the haughty gentleman who sent her packing – and he’s as handsome and arrogant as ever.

Happily Ever After?
Always the proper gentleman, Phillip will do anything to protect his family from scandal, and when Maria dares to move in right next door, he knows scandal will surely follow. She is as tempting as he remembered… and the more he sees her, the harder it is for Phillip to hide his own secret desire for her…

Why: This is one of five in a series that Guhrke herself does not appear to call a series. So maybe just related books:

She's No Princess
And Then He Kissed Her
The Wicked Ways Of A Duke
Secret Desires Of A Gentleman
With Seduction In Mind

Of the five, I'd only read And Then He Kissed Her. I enjoyed that one quite a bit and, in the mood, was happy to pull Secret Desires Of A Gentleman from my TBR stack.

Thoughts: Light and entertaining. But not necessarily convincing.

Phillip resides at the top of society and Maria is a merchant--owner of a bakery shop.

Maria is the more compelling of the two, if you can accept her attitude and behavior. While I liked her wit, I couldn't always reconcile her behavior in this book's setting. Don't get me wrong, I love a historical heroine that bucks societal constrictions. I just wondered--more than once--whether a woman of her station would really feel so free to act as she does. I also wondered how her station--beneath that of the hero--didn't bother her more than it did. Yes, it was the source of the conflict. But she didn't seem to take it as deeply to heart as I would have liked. It seemed a vulnerability Guhrke could have explored but didn't. A chance for her to engage reader emotion that she ignored.

Phillip is the least compelling of all SDOAG's characters. Another missed opportunity for Guhrke, IMO. Where Guhrke took Maria's mouthy disregard to one extreme, she took Phillip's stoic, rigid adherence to the rules to the other extreme. And then failed to balance that social prison with sufficient glimpse of the emotion within. IOW, his own emotional grappling with the issue of station didn't run any deeper than Maria's. Again, it was a vulnerability Guhrke failed to explore.

I say that Guhrke failed to explore these vulnerabilities because although she didn't adequately explore or develop them, she did provide the occasional hint or sign. Like when Maria is forced to leave Phillip's home via the servants' entrance--not all that safe and in a downpour no less. Or when reader's learn that it is Phillip who took and has coveted Maria's favorite hair ribbon for 12 years. Both of these 'opportunities' tugged, found me holding my breath, bracing for the emotional fallout. It just never came. Every time I shifted to the edge of my seat, Phillip quietly retreated into society and Maria had a temper tantrum.

Bringing them together in bed changed that dynamic little. Another disappointment. And, in the end, when Phillip chooses a public venue to announce his love for a woman beneath his station, it wasn't enough. I wasn't convinced of his choice of her over societal rules. Nor was I convinced that she was ready to put her love for him first and her need to live outside societal constraints second.

Overall, light and entertaining. One, because Guhrke doesn't trouble readers with very much emotion or angst in the telling. And two, because there are lots and lots and lots of desserts.

Of note: If memory serves, I thought the H/H from And Then He Kissed Her better developed than these two. So while SDOAG didn't stir as much emotion as I would have liked, I'm still keen on reading the other titles in this set of Guhrke books.