While You Slept

Wendy Burge has proven again that she is an unusual romance writer who possesses the skill to combine dark, passionate characters with themes you usually only find in fine literature. In her newest novel WHILE YOU SLEPT Katherine Beatrice Camden-Carey, Viscountess Halsingham has been held captive all her life. She has been locked up in her abusive and embittered father's home for 21 years; never even allowed to venture further than the estate gardens. She has been trapped in a loveless marriage to a handsome, philandering husband who openly flaunts his many mistresses. And worst of all, she has been prisoner to her overweight body. But this is all about to change. Angry and disgusted that after three years of marriage Katherine still isn't pregnant, her father sends her away to London to be with her husband. But before she reaches her destination the dangerously dilapidated carriage has an accident killing everyone with her and leaving Katherine in a coma. The "Hellhound" of Dereham Hall, The Marquis Sion Sinclair finds her and brings her to his home entrusting her to the care of his one remaining servant Mrs. Turlow. You see he doesn't give a damn about the fat, ugly, nearly dead woman. All he thinks about is drinking himself into an early grave. Since Victoria, his beloved wife's, [demise] a few years before all Sion cares about it forgetting the terrible role he played in her and his unborn child's deaths. This all changes when he fires Mrs. Turlow and Katherine's life is left in his drunken hands. While looking upon her emaciated form he finds the strength within himself to care again. Suddenly he is fighting his need for brandy and nursing the comatose young lady into better health. WHILE YOU SLEPT is a stunning story of rebirth and self empowerment. When Katherine wakes up she doesn't believe what has happened. She is not only thin and beautiful, but with Sion she is, for the first time in her life, happy. Deciding that no one will recognize the "new her", she kills off "Katherine" and becomes Contessa Danae. What she doesn't realize is that just because she is thin doesn't mean her life will be simple. This is what I liked most about the book. Burge has proven that she knows how to write "real" characters with "real" stories. While reading WHILE YOU SLEPT I never felt anything was sugar coated. Even though Katherine is reborn into the beautiful Contessa Danae, and The Hellhound gets a second chance at finding himself, nothing is easy for either of them. They both have to fight the same demons - they just have to do it in new guises. I was especially stunned at how well Burge dealt with a fat to thin heroine. I hate plots where the fat girl looses weight, turns into a beauty, and BAM gets a man. In WHILE YOU SLEPT you slowly discover that the hero's first wife was stunning to him, but not really a diamond of the first water. What he loved about her was her, not her physical appearance. Bottom Line: Burge has a unique voice and can spin a tr

Somehow I don't think the other two readers read the same book I did. I loved this love story. It had two great characters, that I feel were well developed, and made me want to know them more as the story progressed. Unlike some books, there was actually a story and plenty of chemistry between the characters. It had me laughing at the dialog between the Danae and Sion. Two sad people with troubled pasts come together and learn to live again, Sion after years of trying to destroy himself in self pity after loosing his wife and unborn child and Danae, after years of mental and physical abuse by her abusive father. Give this book a chance, it quickly grabs you and has you hooked. I loved it.