Review - - Sweet Deception

Sweet Deception
Veiled Seduction - Book 2
By Heather Snow
Publisher:  Signet Eclipse
Release Date:  August 7, 2012

After discovering a devastating betrayal that turned his life upside down, Lord Derick Aveline left his family home, swearing never to return, but King and Country have brought him back for one last mission before he gives up the spy game and starts a new life in America. Playing the part of a pampered society fop, he plans to use his childhood connection with Miss Emma Wallingford to gain the trust of the locals in his quest to uncover the identity of a traitor who has been selling secrets to the French.  He doesn't expect to walk into his home and discover Emma ordering his staff and most of the town folk about like an experienced field marshal.  And, he somehow forgot to take into account the fact that Emma would have grown up in the years he's been gone.  The girl next door has evolved into a lovely woman with a brilliant mind, an insatiable curiosity and a few secrets of her own.

Emma Wallingford has been enamored with Derick Aveline since she was a young girl but she is none too pleased to have him back in Derbyshire.  A brilliant mathematician and criminologist, Emma has secretly been the acting magistrate - a position she loves and for which she is eminently qualified - since her older brother's debilitating stroke.  If Derick discovers it is Emma and not her brother who is responsible for investigating a string of murders, everything she has worked hard to achieve could be lost.  But when a maid from Derick's castle is found murdered and Derick insists on inserting himself into the investigation of her death, Emma begins to see glimpses of the Derick she knew and loved as a young girl.  And as they grow closer, Emma stands to lose more than her job if Derick discovers her deception.  Her heart is at serious risk of being lost to a man who has no intention of staying in England.

Heather Snow's debut book, Sweet Enemy was one of my top books of the first half of 2012 and I liked Sweet Deception even better.  Snow's heroines are intelligent, independent and ahead of their time.  With Emma, she brings us a brilliant mathematician and statistician with a logical, literal outlook on life, the adorable habit of mangling metaphors and someone who should be kept far, far away from the kitchen.
Every time Emma got a metaphor wrong, she endeared herself to Derick - and me - more, such as in the following scene where she informs Derick that she knows he's not really who he's pretending to be.

"I'm certain you've worked very hard at affecting the perfect degree of pomposity."
     Well, yes, he had actually.  But he didn't appreciate her pointing it out.  Or noticing that it was an affectation, for that matter.
     "However, if you were the skirt-chasing ne'er--do-well you want me to believe you are, you wouldn't be here," she said.  "You would care naught for finding Molly's killer or for" - she averted her gaze - "watching over me, as you say."  Her eyes returned to him and she pointed a delicate finger directly at him, "You'd still be traipsing around the Continent sowing your wild seeds."
     Something between a choke and a cough closed his throat.  Derick huffed twice to clear it.  "That's oats, Emma," he murmured.  "Wild oats."

Derick has played so many roles during his years as a spy that he's lost track of who he really is.  That, and an unwelcome truth about his parents, have him ready to run as far away from England as he can.   Snow skillfully and gradually, peels back the layers of the man through his growing relationship with Emma but it will take a near tragedy to finally open his eyes to what has become most important in his life.

An intriguing mystery, a heartwarming romance, a touch of humor and a hero and heroine who are meant to be together all wrapped up in a fast-paced, well-written story make Sweet Deception a book you won't want to miss.

~PJ

Today's Special - - Heather Snow

PJ here!  I'm so excited to welcome Heather Snow back to The Romance Dish today!  Heather's debut book, Sweet Enemy is fresh, original and one of my favorite books released in the first half of 2012.  When I finished it I immediately started counting down the days until  Derick Aveline's story, Sweet Deception.  I'm reading it now and loving every minute of Emma and Derick's adventure!  

Heather is a historical romance author with a degree in Chemistry who discovered she much preferred creating chemistry on the page, rather than in the lab.  She lives in the Midwest with her husband, two rambunctious boys and one very put upon cat.  Find out more or connect with Heather at:

www.HeatherSnowBooks.com

Facebook www.facebook.com/AuthorHeatherSnow

Twitter www.twitter.com/HeatherSnowRW

When Characters Surprise Us…

Lady criminologist, Miss Emma Wallingford, unknowingly finds herself tangled in the dangerous final mission of Lord Derick Aveline, a spy who also happens to be her long lost first love. But when deception, however sweet, is the name of the game, no one can be trusted. And every love—and every life—is at risk.

Hello! Heather Snow here and I am thrilled to be continuing my blog tour for Sweet Deception here at The Romance Dish. Thank you for having me back again! What I am doing for this tour is pulling back the curtain of Sweet Deception a bit, sharing a few of my favorite passages from the book each day while letting you in on the thoughts behind them. You can keep up with the stops (or go back and read ones you missed) either on my website (www.HeatherSnowBooks.com) or my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AuthorHeatherSnow).

As I mentioned in earlier posts in the blog tour, Derick was very much an enigma to me when I started writing. You see, he was a spy working for the War Department in Sweet Enemy. He had a very specific mission to accomplish in that book and could be whoever I needed him to be.  But when he stepped onto the page of his own story? He surprised me throughout…

Derick released a long breath, but it did little to relieve the arousal humming through him. How long had it been since a woman, any woman, affected him so? Maybe such a reaction was to be expected, given this was the closest he’d come to touching a woman in two years. But this was Pygmy, for God’s sake. Pygmy! Where had his control gone?

It was that damnable scent, he decided. Lavender mingled with something more . . . earthy. He always had preferred earthy. Or perhaps it was that even her shapeless overcoat couldn’t hide the curve of her hips or her surprisingly rounded bosom. Or maybe it was the way she moved with him, the backs of her thighs rolling with the motion of the horse, flexing and relaxing against him much as they would if she were—

Derick swallowed, hard. He’d never had a woman across his lap on horseback before, hadn’t known how alluring it could be. That must be it. Not the woman herself.

He had to find a way of distracting himself from his inconvenient awareness of her softness nestled so close to his . . . hardness.

What was that, Derick? You’ve been celibate by choice for two years? I had no idea until I wrote that line. You see, I’d envisioned him as sort of the Regency James Bond, wooing his way through Europe, devil-may-care. I had intended to write that light-hearted character I thought he was. And yet Derick had other ideas…as he started whispering in my ear, I realized he was a much darker character than I’d thought. Yes, he was devil-may-care on the surface, full of flashing grins and witty repartee, but underneath churned shame and guilt and a soul in search of redemption that he didn’t even think was possible—much less in the arms of Emma, his childhood nemesis, who as it turns out, was the only woman who would be able to reach the man he used to be and help him find his way back into the light.

Luckily, as characters sometimes do, he knew better than me and became a much richer hero because of it. I hope you enjoy reading Derick and Emma’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Please look out for SWEET DECEPTION, available now, wherever books are sold.

I’ll be happy to give away a copy of my debut, SWEET ENEMY, the first book in this series. To enter, simply leave me a comment and answer the question: Did you have a childhood nemesis? And are you still friends today?

  

SWEET DECEPTION Available NOW:

Rainy Day Books (my local indie)
Amazon (Kindle Edition)
Amazon (Mass Market Paperback)
Barnes and Noble
The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)

Books-A-Million
IndieBound
I-Books
Walmart