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Jeannette Boucher has married a man older than her father. At eighteen years old, she is not happy but is resigned to the fact that the match will help her family. Her dreams of her wedding night are only nightmares and she is dreading what will happen in the bedchamber. When her younger brother, Henri, tells her to run, to flee, she is shocked. He just overheard a very malicious piece of gossip and knows that Jeannette's wedding night truly will be the horror she portends. She flees into the night with plans to meet her family in London in two weeks. Things only go from bad to worse however when she sneaks aboard a ship disguised as a boy in order to arrive in London quicker and her scheme falls into total disarray.
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She has one champion however, Lieutenant Crawford Treynor. When he discovers Jeannette is not "Jean Vicard”, he is set to turn her in until he hears what she is fleeing from. Treynor has long held contempt for the upper societies and thus he decides to help Jeannette. But theirs is a relationship fraught with attraction that must go unfulfilled. Or will these two find a way to be together, despite all the odds against them?
THE BASTARD is a historical romance from Brenda Novak, long known for her romantic suspense books. What I enjoyed most about this book is the setting and the rich historical details, particularly about the ship Jeannette and Trey were traveling on. It really set the scene for the book and kept the danger high. The romance itself is pleasant. Jeannette and Trey have some very bad notions about each other at first that really needed to be examined before any type of trust is built between them. And given that Jeannette was married, even if it was not a consummated union, well, I had a hard time always supporting the romance. Yes, her husband was very villainous but I wanted Jeannette to act more honorably sometimes. When the time came for them to finally get their happily-ever-after, I was pleased for the characters. THE BASTARD is definitely a very different book from Brenda Novak's previous stories but it holds appeal for readers who remember the high drama romances from the 1980s.
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