Valiant
by Adele Clee
My review:
“You’re not a wallflower. You’re a pirate come to pillage and plunder.”
Vivienne Hart is perplexing to Evan Sloane. She is a quiet young woman, and lately Evan always feels her watching him everywhere he goes. Evan can’t decide if he should consider her a wallflower or a bluestocking, although either way he’s quite sure she’s not the type of woman that fits his life. He spends his free time carousing with willing widows and calculating courtesans, women who expect nothing more from him but a temporary wild ride. When Vivienne appears at his door in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, he begins to discover that she is intelligent and brave, and so much more interesting than he ever imagined. Evan works as an enquiry agent (a private detective) for the Gentlemen of the Order. This is the third book of that series, but you can absolutely enjoy it as a stand-alone. If you are familiar with this series already, you do get to see briefly the other Gentleman of the Order, which is great.
Vivienne struggles to get Evan to pay attention to what she is trying to explain to him, and when he finally does, it is startling even to his cynical sensibilities. She is in possession of evidence that her grandfather and his grandfather – who everybody knows was a pirate – were involved in a pact that has now thrown Evan and Vivienne together to solve a mysterious puzzle, deal with dangerous threats, and recover a lost legacy left to them by their ancestors. This is a wonderfully complicated and perfectly plotted story that pulled me in and kept my attention from the first paragraph to the very last.
I am being very careful not to give spoilers because you just have to let this story unfold for you as it was written by the author. It’s too good for me to ruin it for you! I will tell you that the main characters are so interesting, and the chemistry between them is crackling hot. Adele Clee always brings great dialogue gand witty banter to the page, and the story sparkles with it. Secondary characters are so well described and defined that you can see them in your mind’s eye just as clearly as you can envision the main characters. I can’t wait to read the next story In this series!