So, I had originally planned to review This Duchess of Mine, the next to last book in Eloisa James’ current series, but I didn’t really like it. The characters were boring, and since most of my posts have leaned toward the negative, I thought I would write a positive review about a book that I did like, but is not as current as the novel by James. However, The Virgin’s Secret came out at the end of April 2009, so it is fairly current. Also, it is Alexander’s first book in a new series.

The Virgin’s Secret is a unique story (considering it must follow the romance novel story arc) that details the relationship of Nathanial Harrington, an adventurer, and Gabriella Montini, the sister of a murdered adventurer. Gabriella is searching for an artifact that was stolen from her brother shortly before his death, upon which his reputation at the Antiquities Society can be restored. Gabriella meets Nathanial as she is breaking into his home, searching for this stolen artifact, as he and his brother Quinton, also an adventurer, are at the top of her list of thieves. Nathanial offers his assistance in helping her seek out the true thief (and possible murderer) as he is quite confident it is neither him nor his brother, and he realizes that her search could put her in danger, something he does not want to see happen.

Their relationship develops from a not-quite friendship, where they both want to be in control of the search and confrontation of other possible thieves because they do not quite trust the other.

“And what do you propose I say?” He stared at her. “Good afternoon, Lady Rathbourne. I trust you’re well today. Oh, did you know you broke my brother’s heart, he’s never quite recovered, and by the way, we are curious as to whether or not your husband — the man you left my brother for — is a thief.”

“Now you’re being absurd, Nathanial,” she scoffed. “We wouldn’t want to put it quite like that.”

“Oh.” He raised a brow. “How then would you put it?”

“I think we should pay a call on Lady Rathbourne and ask her if her husband’s collections include a recently acquired ancient Akkadian cylinder seal.” She smiled.

“Are you insane?”

“I don’t think so,” she said coolly. “You think this is insane?”

“Under what pretext would we say we were calling?” He clenched his teeth. “Aside from the absurd idea of resuming our acquaintance.”

“I don’t know.” She resumed pacing and tried to think. “Surely between the two of us we can come up with something plausible. We are fairly intelligent, after all.”

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” He rose to his feet, his brow furrowed. “You have no idea how to go about locating this seal at all, do you?”

She winced to herself. “Well, I suppose one might say, if one was particularly concerned with minor details …”

“One might say what?”

“One might say,” she said slowly, “the answer to that is …”

“Yes?”

“No.”

As the story of discovering who stole the artifact progresses through a myriad of complicated twists and turns, Nathanial begins to realize how different Gabriella is from the other women he has met about the ton. He is drawn to her because of her intelligence, her unusual upbringing and her vast schooling (for a woman in her place in society). This is part of the uniqueness of this story Alexander has written, that the hero realizes that he cannot live without the heroine before she does, because many romance novels are written from the perspective of the heroine attempting to bring the hero to heel. Though Gabriella eventually comes to recognize that she, too, has feelings for him, it is not until much later in the novel. In fact, there are a number of scenes in which Gabriella gives herself to Nathanial without quite understanding her desires to be with him.

“First of all, you should know, I have no intention of marrying you.”

He grinned. “I don’t recall asking you.”

“I realize that, but should you decide, out of some misplaced sense of honor, to do so, you should know the answer would be no.”

“Thank you for settling that.” He studied her curiously. “Why exactly are you here?”

“I have been giving … that is, I have been thinking …”

He shook his head. “Oh, that’s never good.  Please don’t tell me you have a plan.”

She glared at him. “You’re making this most difficult.”

“Making what most difficult?”

“This.” Without thinking, she waved at the bed in the next room. “All of this.”

“All of what?”

“I want you to seduce me,” she blurted, then winced. She hadn’t planned to simply announce it, but then her plans never seemed to go well anyway.

His eyes widened. “Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

The Virgin’s Secret is a wonderfully fun book, with two intelligent characters to follow. Their path to love, as well as the many scrapes they get into, are not only believable, but easy to imagine from Alexander’s writing. I will be looking forward to the next book in the Harringtons series, which Alexander promises for sometime in 2010.

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