An Unforgettable Rogue
The Rogues Club
By Annette Blair

Beauty resides where gentleness and love are the wondrous of gifts . . .

     Alexander ‘Alex’ Huntington was moving on with her life; she stood before the altar to pledge herself to another. A year had passed since she had been widowed when her husband died on the battlefields of Waterloo. Her thoughts were haunted by the love she felt for her first husband, who she had loved since childhood—a love that was never returned. She was shocked when she saw a limping stranger slowly making his way towards the altar. There was something familiar about the newcomer that made her heart beat faster. When she heard a voice from the past declare that he was her husband come back to her from the dead, she felt herself go faint. Had her thoughts of her beloved been turned into a reality?

    Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth had returned from the war a changed man. No longer did he possess the golden looks that had once made him the catch of London’s elite society. His face and body exhibited hideous scars that were a daily reminder of what he had suffered that ill-fated day when he was given up for dead. He felt that his scars make him unworthy to claim his husband’s rights to his beautiful wife. Although he felt he was not worthy of his wife, he refused to allow her to marry an enemy, the Viscount Chesterfield. Stopping the wedding ceremony was his only option. Seeing the beautiful swan his wife Alex has become in the year they had been apart only heightened his awareness of how beastly he must appear to her. Secretly he vowed to one day release her from the commitment that bound them together. Only his heart knew of the magnitude of his love for her, a love that did not become apparent to him until he lay so close to death. Such a love could not be forced to live with the beast that he had become.

    As a reader/reviewer I have made it a point to seek out and read every Beauty/Beast theme reads that I can lay my hands upon. Since childhood, this theme has been one of my all time favorites. I can honestly say that Annette Blair has written the best Regency I have found in this genre. Annette Blair’s characters magically wrapped their way around my heart. My tears of sorrow quickly changed to joy as I finished the last heart-wrenching page. To say that I was impressed with the first book that I have read by this author is an understatement. I am thrilled that there are other sequels to come from this book. I can easily see this memorable series being made into a mini-series for television. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!