Lord Of Fire
Gaelen Foley
Ballantine, 2001, 407 pages.
ISBN#0-449-00637-9
Regency, England, 1814
$6.99 U.S. $9.99 Can
Reviewed by Tom
March 2006
This is the second book in Gaelen Foleys' Knight Miscellany series. It is set in rural England and London in 1814 after the exile of Napoleon to Elba. Alice Montague, sister of the late Baron Glenwood, feels trapped. Sometimes it seems as if she's looking out her window at the world passing her by. She loves her three year old nephew Harry, and she knows he needs people in his life he can count on, and furthermore, she knows his mother Caro, Lady Glenwood, is not reliable or motherly, but rather she is a wanton chiefly concerned with her own pleasure. Alice finds herself attemping to keep Caro on the straight and narrow, and ends up sounding a prude. She knows she really isn't, and wonders what would happen if she had opportunity to release the unruly passions she feels inside. When Harry gets the chicken pox, Alice promises him his mother is coming to care for him. When she is a no show again, Alice goes to Revell Court to bring her home.
Revell Court, the home of Lord Lucien Knight, is the notorious location of mysterious 'secret rites'-- as notorious and mysterious as it's master, a man of many masks. Lucien Knight knows that even with Napoleon deposed the war wasn't necessarily over. His position as master spy for Foreign Secretary Castlereagh is not known outside his close circle. Never allowed to get too close to those around him, his isolation is near complete with the estrangement of his twin brother, the war hero Damien Knight. He feels lost, even desparate, but there is no one there to reach down into him, to the man inside. Lucien's 'secret rites' are a means to collect information. When he spies an unknown woman at his gathering, he needs to find out who she is. Imagine his surprise when he finds the key to his heart in Alice, a woman of integrity, who is able to reach beyond his tired masks of self-indulgence and independance. She ignites the fire of passion waiting in his heart.
When Knight's enemy Bardou, the ruthless and sadistic French spy, comes to England, they are all put to the test. Lucien must push his beloved away to protect her. Alice, although pining for Lucien, is determined to protect Harry at any cost. Caro will do anything to have her own way. Damien is trying to find his place in post-war society. In LORD OF FIRE Alice and Lucien are released to find fulfillment in each other. Alice fills the empty place in Lucien's heart and Lucien releases Alice from her windowed room. Gaelen has written a full and satisfying story of love, intrigue, and devotion with some truly beautiful passages.