A Little Deception
Beverley Eikli

Robert Hale
30 June 2011/ ISBN 0709092636
Historical Romance/ 1818 / London
Amazon US || UK

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

Rose Chesterfield has lived all her life on a tea plantation in the West Indies, but now she is in London where her family’s meager resources are paying for a season for her young sister Arabella. Unfortunately, her stepmother Helena has a penchant for high stakes gambling, and has all but lost them their plantation. Her IOUs are in the hands of dashing rake Viscount Rampton and somehow somebody must play for time if they are not to be ruined. So while Helena is unconscious in a drug-induced stupor Rose has no option but to pretend to be her, the exotic beauty Lady Chesterfield and try and appeal to Rampton’s better nature…

I’ve read and enjoyed other titles by this author and this is no exception. Rose has to uphold the reputation of her family and then her own good name when her wicked stepmother brands her as a jewel thief. It would have been even better if there had not been stock characters like this in it, as I remember liking another book by Ms Eikli that successfully stood several clichés on their heads. As it is, this is a typical romance with plenty of situations where a well-chosen word or two would have changed everything for the better, but Rose fails to defend herself every time. This notwithstanding, this can perhaps be described as a quintessential example of Regency romance and contains enough in it to satisfy most romance readers.