2,916 bytes added
, 15:33, 5 April 2010
{{infobox
|title=My Lady Domino
|author=Jeannie Machin
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=A feel-good read: the heiress who has lost all comes face-to-face with her past.
|rating=3
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|hardback=0709089988
|pages=224
|publisher=Robert Hale
|date=March 2010
|isbn=978-0709089988
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089988</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>0709089988</amazonus>
}}
Adele Russell serves behind the counter in a haberdashers and lives over the shop. It wasn't always like that though as it's only a few years since she was a wealthy heiress engaged to marry an earl, but after her father's financial ruin and his death in a fire her fiancé broke off the relationship and Adele was lucky to be taken in by her old nurse. It's taken some time to come to terms with what happened and Adele has reconciled herself to her lowly position until she finds an invitation to a masked ball. What harm would there be in her wearing her mother's ball gown and domino, just for a taste of how things used to be?
What harm indeed? Well, in retrospect she did allow a certain gentleman whom she called 'Sir Mask' to monopolise her evening and it was perhaps unwise to allow him to see her the next day. When you add to this the fact that the man who brought her father to ruin is keen that she should do nothing to upset his applecart and that her ex-fiancé is to be in Bath for the ball to celebrate the Duke of Wellington's victory you'll see that Adele has rather a lot on her hands.
It was traditional Bank Holiday weather this weekend and the planned work in the garden was abandoned in favour of curling up with a book and a pot of coffee. I read ''My Lady Domino'' in about three hours. You'll love Adele even though there will be times when you think she's taken a risk too far, but she's nicely balanced by the common sense and generosity of her old nurse, Cat Rogers. She's plump and kindly and just what Adele needs.
What Adele doesn't seem to need is all the male attention. She's a beauty, but a shop girl beauty and high-born men don't always approach such women with honourable intentions. On the other hand the Earl of Blaisdon, her sometime fiancé, has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with her, but somehow they keep finding themselves in each other's company…
You'll probably guess how this will work out although there are quite a few surprises along the way, but it's not the sort of book which you read in the hope of an ending to make you sit up and take notice. It's a book to cheer you on a wet Bank Holiday.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals to you then you will almost certainly enjoy [[A Commercial Enterprise by Sandra Heath]] which is set in the same period but in London rather than Bath.
{{amazontext|amazon=0709089988}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=7117545}}
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