Echo in the Wind (The Donet Trilogy #2) by Regan Walker-Review and Excerpt
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 23, 2017
England and France 1784
Cast out by his noble father for marrying the woman he loved, Jean Donet took to the sea, becoming a smuggler, delivering French brandy and tea to the south coast of England. When his young wife died, he nearly lost his sanity. In time, he became a pirate and then a privateer, vowing to never again risk his heart.
As Donet’s wealth grew, so grew his fame as a daring ship’s captain, the terror of the English Channel in the American War. When his father and older brother die in a carriage accident in France, Jean becomes the comte de Saintonge, a title he never wanted.
Lady Joanna West cares little for London Society, which considers her its darling. Marriage in the ton is either dull or disastrous. She wants no part of it. To help the poor in Sussex, she joins in their smuggling. Now she is the master of the beach, risking her reputation and her life. One night off the coast of Bognor, Joanna encounters the menacing captain of a smuggling ship, never realizing he is the mysterious comte de Saintonge.
Can Donet resist the English vixen who entices him as no other woman? Will Lady Joanna risk all for an uncertain chance at love in the arms of the dashing Jean Donet?
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REVIEW: Regan Walker has once again written a tale that pulls you in from the very beginning. As the story begins, we immediately discover that Lady Joanna West is more than just a Lady of the ton. She is a strong and independent woman whose heart aches for the poor, and proves she will do just about anything to see to their well-being.
Lady Joanna and her brother, Richard, the Earl of Torrington, are hosting a party for the new English Prime Minister in their home, when Jean Donet makes his entrance. Joanna is immediately intrigued, as their paths have crossed before, although unbeknownst to him. Rumors of Donet’s past pique her interest even more. Richard has been trying to convince Joanna to travel to London with the family for her little sister’s first season, but she truly had no interest, until Jean Donet asked “Will you be coming to London, Lady Joanna:’. Little did she know that her simple answer of “why, yes”would have a profound effect on her future.
Echo in the Wind is another wonderfully written tale by Regan Walker. Joanna is such a great character. Her big heart, as well as her independent streak, draws you in immediately. However, it is Jean Donet, whom we met in To Tame the Wind, that will grab your heart and not let go. Having lost his first wife years before, he never thought, or even dreamed, that he’d be inclined to love again. His back story is heartbreaking, but it is his strong sense of honor and self that will endear him to all who read. Even though he was cast out by an overbearing father in his youth, he steps up to do what is right by his remaining family after his father and brother are killed in what seemed to be an accident. With tensions rising in France, unforeseen danger lurks in his home country as he tries to unravel not only what happened to his father and brother, but his growing feelings for Lady Joanna. “Like an echo in the wind, love had come to him a second time and he was more than grateful it had”.
Once again, no one, in my humble opinion, writes this genre like Regan Walker. You are always pulled into her tales immediately. You can feel the bumps as the carriage passes over the cobblestone streets and smell the salty sea air as the ship sails to each destination. Walker’s world building is second to none as you are swept from one beautiful and intriguing location to another. And, as always, if you’re a fan of this genre, you will never go wrong with reading any of Ms. Walker’s stories. I always think that once I finish one of her books that it’s my favorite…..until I read the next. Well done, Regan Walker! Very, very, very well done!
Reading order and previous review
To Tame The Wind
Echo in the Wind
A Fierce Wind (2018)
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Vickie M
Bognor, West Sussex, England, April 1784
Except for the small waves rushing to shore, hissing as they raced over the shingles, Bognor’s coast was eerily bereft of sound. Lady Joanna West hated the disquiet she always experienced before a smuggling run. Tonight, the blood throbbed in her veins with the anxious pounding of her heart, for this time, she would be dealing with a total stranger.
Would he be fair, this new partner in free trade? Or might he be a feared revenue agent in disguise, ready to cinch a hangman’s noose around her slender neck?
The answer lay just offshore, silhouetted against a cobalt blue sky streaked with gold from the setting sun: a black-sided ship, her sails lifted like a lady gathering up her skirts, poised to flee, waited for a signal.
Crouched behind a rock with her younger brother, Joanna hesitated, studying the ship. Eight gun ports marched across the side of the brig, making her wonder at the battles the captain anticipated that he should carry sixteen guns.
She and her men were unarmed. They would be helpless should he decide to cheat them, his barrels full of water instead of brandy, his tea no more than dried weeds.
It had been tried before.
“You are certain Zack speaks for this captain?” she asked Freddie whose dark auburn curls beneath his slouched hat made his boyish face appear younger than his seventeen years. But to one who knew him well, the set of his jaw hinted at the man he would one day become.
“I’ll fetch him,” Freddie said in a hushed tone, “and you can ask him yourself.” He disappeared into the shadows where her men waited beneath the trees.
Zack appeared, squatting beside her, a giant of a man with a scar on the left side of his face from the war. Like the mastiffs that guarded the grounds of her family’s estate, he was big and ugly, fierce with enemies, but gentle with those he was charged to protect.
“Young Frederick here says ye want to know about this ship, m’lady.” At her nod, Zack gazed toward the brig. “He used to come here regular with nary a con nor a cheat. He’s been gone awhile now. I heard he might have worked up some other business—royal business.” He rolled his massive shoulders in a shrug. “In my experience, a tiger don’t change his stripes. He’s a Frog, aye, but I trust the Frenchie’s one of us, a free trader still.”
She took in a deep breath of the salted air blowing onshore and let it out. “Good.” Zack’s assurance had been some comfort but not enough to end her concerns. What royal business? For tonight, she need not know. “Give the signal,” she directed her brother, “but I intend to see for myself if the cargo is what we ordered.”
Without seeking the position, Joanna had become the smugglers’ master of the beach, responsible for getting the cargo ashore and away to inland routes and London markets with no revenue man the wiser. She took seriously her role to assure the villagers got what they paid for. Their survival depended upon it.
Copyright © 2017 Regan Walker
Regan Walker is an award-winning, Amazon #1 bestselling author of Regency, Georgian and Medieval romances. A lawyer turned full-time writer, she has six times been featured on USA TODAY’s HEA blog and nominated six times for the prestigious RONE award (her novel, The Red Wolf’s Prize won Best Historical Novel for 2015 in the Medieval category). Her novel The Refuge: An Inspirational Novel of Scotland won the Gold Medal in the Illumination Awards in 2017. And her novel To Tame the Wind won the International Book Award for Romance Fiction in 2017.
Years of serving clients in private practice and several stints in high levels of government have given Regan a love of international travel and a feel for the demands of the “Crown”. Hence her romance novels often involve a demanding sovereign who taps his subjects for special assignments. Each of her novels features real history and real historical figures. And, of course, adventure and love.
