Published 3rd February 2022 by Aria.
From the cover of the book:
1817 Cornwall and London.Heir to an aristocratic family scorched by scandal and scarred by war, the Earl of Lamorna (known to friends as Crow) is as dangerous as he is self-destructive. As a spy, he treads a fine line between loyalty and treachery, with a haunting secret in his past that threatens to destroy not only Crow himself, but those he loves. It's only going to take a single spark to set his world aflame. So when Crow's wild and impetuous young brother catches him in flagrante with their widowed stepmother, a lethal chain of events is set in motion.
Heiress Hester Harewood has problems of her own, on the run from the men who shot her father. The last thing she needs is to get involved with a complicated aristocrat, even if he does offer her his unconditional protection. But who is more dangerous? Those she is running from? Or Crow himself: charismatic, unpredictable, and yet with the capacity for such tenderness that Hester's heart is in just as much danger as her life.
Game of Hearts was previously published as False Lights by K.J. Whittaker and on Kindle as Hester and Crow by Katy Moran
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It's 1817, but this is an England rather different to that of the Regency period we normally read about, because in this timeline Napoleon achieved a narrow victory at Waterloo in 1815, sending Wellington packing with his tail between his legs. England is now under occupation, with Napoleon's brother Jérôme sitting on the English throne, and the former empress Joséphine in charge of court matters. England is under blockade, the French are cruel taskmasters bent on revenge, and the poor are starving in the streets. Wellington has been imprisoned for more than a year, and no one is quite sure where he is.
In the Isles of Scilly, mixed race heiress Hester Harewood is taken captive and her freed slave father Captain John Harewood, a hero of Trafalgar, is murdered in front of her. Contemptuous of the colour of her skin, her captors debate selling her at one of the underground markets that have sprung up since the abolition of slavery as they sail back to the mainland, but they underestimate her courage and cunning and she manages to escape. She is now on the run, seemingly without a friend in the world - until her flight takes her into the path of the handsome and brooding aristocrat the Earl of Lamorna, who is known to his friends as Crow.
Crow is a complicated man, with problems of his own. Haunted by the things he has seen on the battlefield during the long running wars with Napoleon's armies, and tortured by his own role at the Battle of Waterloo and the aftermath, he does not know what to make of the brave and resourceful heroine now under his protection. He is already walking a fine line between the French, English and the people of his Cornish homeland, and needs to come up with a plan to keep them all safe - and to rescue his younger brother Kitto from the clutches of the French authorities after an impetuous act of insurrection.
Danger and treachery lie all around them, and Crow's solution to the conundrum of Hester sets sparks flying between them, but hate and love are two sides of the same coin. Romance lies as thick in the air as peril... will they survive what comes, or will the secrets Crow holds bring everything crashing down?
I came to this story, the first in Katy Moran's Regency Romance Trilogy, prepared to have a rollicking time, which I certainly have, but did not expect to find this quite so bursting at the seams with such wonderful characters, storylines and a cracking spin on the historical front. It wasn't long before I realised that this was going to be a rare and beautiful thing, and settled in to immerse myself completely in the world that Moran has created.
There's all you could wish for on the Bridgerton front, with lashings of scandal, players to both love and hate, and threads of sex, race and class woven tightly into the fabric of the story, but by bringing in the historical twist of an England under occupation by the French, Moran has also created quite a different sort of beast here, with real menace that heightens the experience beautifully. At its heart, this is a marvellous bodice-ripping romance, but it draws on so many other elements too - shades of the Poldark books by Winston Graham; of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books; of Du Maurier; and even the complex machinations and intrigue of Tolstoy's War and Peace, all combine with sweeping storylines that get the blood pumping and grip you emotionally.
The characters are so vivid, jumping right off the page and immersing you in their triumphs and tragedies. The women are particularly entertaining, painted in shades of grey that make them pleasingly authentic: Hester is fierce and capable, chaffing against the limits of patriarchal and prejuducial bonds, and she works herself right into your heart, but she's not the only feisty female in this story. Moran's firebrand women came from all walks of life, and love or loathe them, they are complex and engaging- I found Moran's portrayal of Joséphine particularly interesting and surprisingly poignant.
I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this swash-buckling adventure, following the story with my heart in my mouth and shedding tears at the end. I have moved straight on to book two Wicked by Design, which is shaping up to be every bit as good, so keep your eyes peeled for my review soon!
Game of Hearts, the first book in the Regency Romance Trilogy, is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats from your favourite book retailer. It is followed by book two Wicked by Design, and book three Scandalous Alchemy.
Thank you to Aria/Head of Zeus for sending me paperback copies of this trilogy in return for honest reviews.
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