Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #287388 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

When a bad marriage turns good
Enid MacLean hasn’t seen her husband for 9 years, and isn’t particularly worried that this is so as after 3 months of marriage he ran off and left her to not only fend for herself, but work off his debts too. When she hears that he has been badly injured, she leaves her current charge (Enid looks after the terminally ill) to do her duty by her husband in taking care of him. She arrives to find him almost unrecognisable in his injuries, except for his exceptional eyes, and in very poor health due to the quality of his care. Enid almost surprises herself in her doggedness in determining the best care for him, and in the period of recuperation comes to care for her husband as she barely remembers doing even in the early days of their marriage. For his part, her patient has lost his memory from his injuries, although as it happens, not for good. But all is not as it seems, not even the man she is nursing back to health. And danger stalks them both.

Predictable basic plot, but Dodd works it well and this story is very enjoyable. The threat to them both seems very real and immediate, and the bonds that grow between patient and caregiver stem from the strong characteristics of each of the central characters. The mystery of who is threatening them I certainly found to be hard to anticipate, and kept me guessing. The quandry Enid faces in particular touched an emotional chord in me.

This is one of the books featuring the Throckmortons from ‘In My Wildest Dreams’ and thus the rest of the Governess series, but it is not necessary to have read the others to enjoy this, as the storylines do not touch except for 2 (admittedly rather important) characters. Nonetheless it would not spoil the sequence of events to read this one first – it might even arouse your curiosity enough to try one of the others.

Romance/spy novel
Lost in Your Arms is loosely connected to the Governess Brides series (The organisation helps Enid MacLean, the heroin to find her latest position as a nurse companiion) but this book can deffinatly stand on its on. Enid has been married for nine years to a scoundral who seduced her at seventeen, then abandoned her three months later to fend for herself, and pay off the debts he had accumulated. Now, nine years later she is summoned to take care of her husband after he has been injured by a bomb blast in the Crimea. (This book is set during the Victorian era) So, relucctantly, she leaves her charge behind, an elderly, somewhat cantankerous lady, and goes off to nurse her husband back to health.

MacLean though, isn't quite the way she remembered him. He wakes up with amnesia, that he only slowly recoves from. He doesn't like to think that he was a gambler, or that he abandoned his wife. This MacLean is also quite definately attracted to his wife, a feeling which his wife against her better judgement and her own memories, shares. When a fire is started in the cottage which Enid and MacLean are using until he is back up on his feet, forces them to leave, they must try to dodge the people who are trying to kill him.

This is quite an intruiging novel, with a fast moving plot line, and wonderful characters. Enid's distrust of men in general provides an almost insurmountable barrier for MacLean to climb over. Deffinately worth your time.