Bedding the Baron

Ms. Raleigh's first few books were extremely sensual and enjoyable. This reviewer always felt that her talent was held back by the publisher with a limited number of pages to the stories leaving readers with abrupt endings wanting more, but overall, due to the talent of the writer, every story was still a joy to read. In the first of this new trilogy, Ms. Raleigh does not disappoint from the beginning and all the way to the end. She only gets better, and this particular romance trilogy appears to be one of those where readers will patiently be waiting for the next two books. Mr. Drummond has had the pleasure of many years of tutoring and caring for three important, handsome and educated young men left bastards by important noblemen in London. He has been the one proud and stable force in the lives of these three gentlemen. Upon Mr. Drummond’s death, each discovers they have questions about the large amount of money left them and the unique stipulations regarding the wills. They are left wondering not only about their true fathers, but the dear Mr. Drummond who took them in and molded them into the fine gentlemen they have become. As the three handsome noble bastards get over the shock and loss, Ian Breckford and Raoul Charlebois are delighted with the funds left them and feel no need at the time to consider their fathers who deserted them, only to mourn the loss of their dear friend and continue to enjoy their rogue lives in London. But Fredrick Smith decides he definitely needs answers, not just about his father, but about Mr. Drummond as well. He has spent years of unique, strange, and well-hidden visits with his true father, visits that left him more angry than secure. He became an extremely successful businessman in his own right, without the help of his father and certainly feels no joy for the funds now left him as Ian and Raoul do. He has always wanted to confront his father for answers, not money. Now that Mr. Drummond is gone, and he is successful in his own right, he takes off on a quest to obtain these answers, and discovers much more than expected while staying at a local inn near his father’s estate, run by the charming, beautiful, but shabbily dressed widow, Mrs. Portia Walker. Both Fredrick and Portia are lost and wandering souls with broken hearts and deep hidden miseries and secrets and are immediately drawn to each other. Soon desire and passion bloom and both realize that until their unsuspecting meeting, they were extremely lost and troubled with their past, but have begun finding a special joy and sensuality together in the present. Long hidden secrets that were never to be discovered, soon surface. Will the answers that Fredrick at long last found, threaten the true love and passion that he and Portia held back for years or will it grow with Fredrick’s shocking discoveries? The storyline is extremely interesting and the characters have a depth that leaves the reader enthralled with secrets, answers, desires and the eventual outcome of all involved. Bedding the Baron is enjoyable from front to back, leaving the reader absorbed with a story very difficult to put down. I certainly am looking forward to the next two books! ~ Beverly Meiner, Beverly Romance Books