Checkmate My Lord is set England in the time of Napoleon. The two main characters, Catherine Ashcroft and Sebastian Danvers, Earl of Somerton are neighbors. Catherine is newly widowed. Her husband, Jeffery, had not been home for years and her marriage had been over for a long time. Just before his death he wrote her a series of strange letters and Catherine goes to Sebastian asking for help in finding out what the letters really meant and how Jeffery really died. That action sets up the story.
I have often said that in romance it is not the destination but the journey that makes the story. While Checkmate My Lord is a very pleasant read the plot in is one that has been used many times. England is at war with France and has a secret spy network that is being threatened. The book is very well written but there were no surprises in the plot. That made the journey very predictable and I knew what was going to happen long before I got to the end. There were also several oblivious hooks for future books that did not add anything to the story line.
An added problem for me was the fact that this is the second book about the spy network and I have not read the first book. Even though a lot of back-story is added in the first few pages of the book I was still left in the dark about some of the side characters and what had happened in book one to set up this story. I recommend reading book one before Checkmate My Lord. All in all for me Checkmate My Lord was a bit of a disappointment.
Sourcebooks published Checkmate My Lord by Tracey Devlyn in 2013.
I received an ARC of Checkmate My Lord from Netgalley.
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