The Wagering Widow

A series of misconceptions lays the groundwork for this compelling story of masked intrigue and unexpected passion. Emily Duprey is quiet, unremarkable in appearance, without fortune or connections, and in her third season on the marriage mart. She is therefore stunned when, after knowing her for only a short while, Guy Keating asks Emily to elope with him. Unlike Emily, Guy is quite a catch. He is handsome, a viscount, comfortably well-off, and a seemingly nice person, to boot. Emily gladly marries Guy, relieved to finally be free of her awful parents and flattered to be wanted by such a desirable man! What Emily does not know is that Guy is destitute (due to his late brother's gambling) and married her because he mistakenly thinks she is an heiress. About a week into the marriage, Guy learns that Emily is as poor as he is. Guy has been slow to advance their physical relationship, and now he brings it to a complete halt. He fears that sleeping with Emily will result in a child that he cannot provide for. Prideful and protective, he avoids Emily, hides his insolvency from her, and gambles at cards (successfully) to win money on which to live. Emily knows Guy goes to gaming clubs every night. She sees how little money they have, and wrongly assumes that it is due to his gambling. Emily's father was a compulsive gambler, and she has no desire for any part of it. She decides to earn enough money to be able to leave Guy. Despite her aversion to gambling, Emily is a skilled card player. She reinvents herself, complete with a masked disguise, as the seductive "Lady Widow." She finds a discreet private club in which to play and, sneaking out nights, she wins a sizable fortune - aided by her alluring attire and flirtatious manner. Then Guy starts coming to her club. Emily thinks he doesn't recognize her in the disguise, but he does and just chooses not to tell her. This is where the story gets interesting, for though strangers in the day, they become quite familiar at night. I thoroughly enjoyed this riveting read. Guy and Emily are fascinating characters - flawed, yet complex and appealing. Emily starts out extremely calm and controlled, afraid to openly express her emotions, so that her transformation to Lady Widow is truly gratifying. Guy starts out as a fortune-hunting cad, yet we care for him anyway. He is virtually oblivious to Emily, apparently incapable of remembering her name (so he keeps calling her "dear"), and Emily, in turn, avoids calling him Guy. When their names are finally used, the reader knows it means something. The story has wonderful dialogue. The love scenes are a little sparse, but the interplay and sexual tension between the pair is so good that one does not feel shortchanged. It is helpful to first read the previous book, "The Mysterious Miss M," to better understand Emily's history. Highly recommended.

I've now read this book twice in less than a month. Diane Gaston has a perceptive view of people and their motives. Her style is engaging and easy to read. I found myself reading one more chapter, and then one more chapter, and then just one more until I got to the end because I wanted to know what happened next. I suspect I'll be reading it again soon.

The Wagering Widow is my second book by Diane Gaston and I continue to be very impressed by this new author. She seems to have decided to carve out a little niche for herself in the seamier underside of Ton life in the Regency period. She creates sympathetic, interesting characters who, for broadly believable reasons, find themselves enmeshed in the demi monde of gambling, prostitution and so forth. At first I found myself thinking this would not be possible or would otherwise make somewhat credulous reading but I think she has pulled it off. In reading the author blurb I find that she is a psychiatric social worker. Perhaps this is why she is able to create troubled characters with a thread of moral fibre that allows them to come through their travails relatively unscathed and ready to embark on happy personal relationships. In this story, she portrays a troubled marriage between Guy, Lord Keating and his wife Emily Duprey (first met in The Mysterious Miss M). A marriage of convenience complicated by a breakdown in communication between two people who nonetheless have a big spark of physical attraction is well drawn. Guy sees no way out of huge financial difficulties except at the gambling table and Emily, determined to leave him, fearing he loathes her, and find independence does the same. They each are sucked reluctantly into a shady side of life neither relish. There are some rather unsavoury characters they must deal with, including nasty and wicked parents. Eventually, as in all romances, the two manage to resolve their differences. Peripheral characters from The Mysterious Miss M add to the story, which can be read independently. I think this author shows great promise. She writes extremely well with crispness and command. Her period details are good and she shows evidence of careful research. I am looking forward to the third book in this series and recommend this highly.

Guy, Lord Keating, is in dire need of funds. To get them, he follows in his deceased father's footsteps, hitting the gaming tables, until he learns that Emily Duprey is an "heiress." He woos, then convinces Emily to elope with him to Scotland, certain the marriage will solve his financial problems.Behind Emily's quiet, mousy façade rests a spunky female who longs for love and a desire to escape her father-a gambler who sent away Emily's sister, Madeline, after a scandal, declaring her "dead." Emily is thrilled that a handsome, wealthy man would desire her, and agrees to elope when Guy tells her that her father refused to allow their marriage. Although their wedding night is bliss, Guy soon loses interest in the marriage bed. If that isn't bad enough, when Guy takes her home after their honeymoon in Scotland and introduces Emily to his mother, the elderly woman makes it clear she doesn't approve of the marriage. Even so, Emily is determined to make the best of things.Then Emily then learns Guy married her only for her inheritance - a mere pittance. Determined not to live with a man who doesn't love her, she devises a plan: Using her deceased mother's clothing, she'll disguise herself as "Lady Widow" and use the card skills she learned from her father to win sufficient money to escape a loveless marriage and live on her own. She seeks the aid of her married brother, Robert, who also possesses the gambling habit.When the masked, alluring "Lady Widow" appears at a gambling house, the men quickly bet on who will be the first to bed her. Cyprian Stone, an acquaintance of Lord Keating, convinces Guy to join him at the betting establishment to meet "Lady Widow." Guy is astonished when he discovers that the seductive "Lady Widow" is his mousy wife, and soon wonders if she, like her father, is addicted to gambling. Though he's hot happy about the fact other men are vying to bed her, he hides his discovery, playing along with her game, intent on preventing the other men from winning the bet - and discovering the answer to his worst fear.Complications arise when Cyprian Stone also realizes that the "Lady Widow" is Lady Emily, Guy's wife. Determined to win the ever increasing bet regarding bedding the woman, Cyprian threatens Emily, using knowledge of her sister Madeline's past scandal and present identity as a happily married woman to force Emily into bed. But will he succeed? The Wagering Widow by Diane Gaston, aka Diane Perkins, is a thoroughly engrossing tale of love and deception, of desire and hope. The characters are wonderfully drawn, their goals and emotions expertly revealed as the story unveils. Emily possesses an inner strength and an ability to be kind in the face of rejection, characteristics that gained my admiration during the first few pages. Guy's reasons for marrying Emily at first appear selfish, however the reason for doing so are not: he wants merely to erase his father's debts and provide for his aging mother and two aunts. Guy isn'

A book has to be truly mesmerizing to make me want to write a thank-you letter to its author; I've only ever done so a few times. THE WAGERING WIDOW made me write such a letter! I'm reading it for the second time, since I couldn't get enough of Guy and Emily and wanted to experience their story all over again!As the book opens, Viscount Guy Keating and Emily Duprey are marrying under false pretenses, and barely know each other. Author Diane Gaston (whose MYSTERIOUS MISS M and The IMPROPER WIFE, the latter penned as Diane Perkins in the US) is, I think, very brave indeed to open a romance this way -- rightdown to the stark realism of the wedding night where Guy, full of guilt at his side of the deception (he's marrying her for the fortune she's said to have inherited), is as gentle as he can be with his very virginal bride. And although Emily finds him very handsome, kind, and polite, their wedding night is less than ideal, for love is not really there -- not yet, and the reader is swept up into a page-turner, wondering how in the world this will EVER work out! It does, and so beautifully! Gaston's hero and heroine are so deeply drawn, and so realistic (we learn so much about their innermost motives and feelings) that the book feels like "richer" romance. Think of chocolate, and then think of VERY dark, rich, fine chocolate, some of the finest you've ever had. It's like that. This book, like her previous works, has her stamp of lovely prose, deep emotions, and brilliant but realistic plots -- I am hooked, and will always be waiting for the next Diane Gaston/Diane Perkins romance! I don't wish to give the plot away, and you can read about it at the author's site, or even here, soon, if the publisher's synopsis is posted... but I must tell you that this is a reading experience you'll not soon forget. You come to love her characters, even some of her secondary characters. Not too far into the book, I'm in love with Guy. (Emily I love right away, since she is easy to identify with.) But it's rare for me to read a romance where I even care what happens to most of the servants! They are all so human! The plot line is positively delicious, in some of its twists and turns. We even get to see Devlin and Maddy, from MYSTERIOUS MISS M, for a few pages; however, each book stands alone; they don't have to be read in sequence at all. (But wow, are they good!)Again, this is no ordinary romance. Ms. Gaston has a background in social work/counseling, and it's put to amazing use in each of her novels. We see and understand their very complex desires and fears and hopes, and we see their innate goodness. We fervently want them to be together.There are some very beautiful love scenes in the book; Chapter 15, for example, is the longest, most drawn-out bit ofseduction I've *ever* read ... Guy and 'Lady Widow'(his Emily!) are playing a card game on three levels: an emotional battle of wills, the card game itself, and a game of seduction, which has them losing