The Royal Conquest by: Stacy Reid

Synopsis

After being cruelly jilted by a lord who claimed to adore her, Miss Payton Peppiwell swore her future husband would be as ordinary as she. Now if only her family would listen to her. Then she meets Mikhail Konstantinovich, an untitled horse breeder, in a highly improper and scandalous encounter. Never had Payton expected to be so attracted to the dark, intriguing man, who seduces her to recklessness with a mere stare.

Mikhail abhors anything to do with intimacy. Yet Miss Peppiwell stirs hunger and a need long forgotten in him. But Mikhail has a dark past—one that means his lust must be sated in a way entirely unsuitable for a lady. But his biggest secret will be the hardest for Payton to overcome: Mikhail is not only titled, he’s a prince…

My Review

I really enjoyed reading The Royal Conquest by Stacy Reid. It was a nice departure from the usual historical romance novel which usually includes some young woman who is in search of a title and wealth from some hot duke trotting along the countryside just outside of London. Instead in this novel we get Payton Peppiwell with ties to the Americas, who just wants to shake it all off while wearing a pair of trousers, ride random horses, and write children’s stories. However, her family of gold diggers and social climbers want her to do the whole London, high-society thing and marry well, even after her engagement was publicly ended by Sir Duke-A-Lot.

And then you have Mikhail with a dark past, who just wants to be a random nobody until he is ready to present himself as prince awesomeness to London's society. So, until the time is right, he plans to hang out at his cousin’s house when he happens upon Payton, who also happens to be at the same place at the same time. After their eventful encounter, the two of them are unable to get the other one off their minds. Mikhail, definitely wants to be her guy and Payton is all ready to be his bae, but her family and the gossipy locals threaten her peace of mind and her piece of him. Oh, did I mention Mikhail’s fiancé pops up and threatens their happily ever after.

I digress. I really liked this one and overall, I would give it 4.5-stars and recommend that you run and read The Royal Conquest by Stacy Reid. It was well-written and had a nice and steady pace which made this a good and quick read. However, I felt like I should have know a few of the characters that were sprinkled here there and there there. Later on I did realize that this was the fourth book in the Scandalous House of Calydon series. No worries, I will be running on out and read books one through three, but in the mean times I am adding them to my "want to read" list.