The Impostor (The Liars Club, Book 2)

Features

• Cover Type: Mass Market Paperback with 384 pages
• Published by: St. Martin's Paperbacks January 2, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0312946015
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0312946012
• Book Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 7.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Bradley's Regency-era Liar's Club series (The Pretender, etc.) is based on a trite premise that a band of aristocratic gentlemen are really "ruthless" covert operatives for the Crown but this fast, frothy second installment proves that even old formulas can yield surprising results. When young widow Clara Simpson inadvertently rouses the Crown's ire with her reformist cartoons, penned under the nom de plume of Sir Thorogood, Liar's Club member Dalton Montmorency decides to pose as Sir Thorogood to flush the elusive cartoonist out into the open. As Sir Thorogood, Dalton finds himself fending off several attempts on his life. Clara, meanwhile, makes it her mission to unmask him. The game becomes even more complex when Dalton tries to break into the house where Clara is posing as a maid to dig up material for her next cartoon. Clara mistakes Dalton for a thief, and he, in turn, believes her a maid. In these roles, the two allow their attraction to blossom. Bradley carefully layers deception upon deception, keeping the intrigue level high and the tone bright. Despite the book's sober second half and bittersweet denouement, readers will race through this delightful comedy of errors and eagerly anticipate the next installment.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Review
"Totally entertaining." -Julia Quinn

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Impostor (The Liars Club, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback) Sir Thorogood, the lampoonist, has been ruffling the feathers of the corrupt and the powerful (even as he's been entertaining everyone else) for quite a while now. So that Dalton Montmorency, Lord Etheridge, is rather surprised when Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, 'requests' that the Liars discover who Lord Thorogood is and arrest him. Because there is really no one else he can send out on this particular mission, Montmorency decides to undertake the mission himself. And in order to do so, he decides to pretend to be Lord Thorogood (albeit a very foppish Lord Thorogood) in order to flush the lampoonist out. Instead of which he finds himself being hunted by one particularly foolish and brainless widow... Mrs. Clara Simpson knows that Dalton Montmorency cannot be Lord Thorogood because she's Lord Thorogood! How dare the foolish fribble try to steal her thunder. Clara has been secretly drawing cartoons as Lord Thorogood in order to expose the rich and powerful for the corrupt monsters that they are, and also because she wanted to earn enough money so that she needn't live as a poor relation with her in-laws any more. All was going well until this false Lord Thorogood turned up and starting receiving the accolades that were her due. Now Clara is determined to unmask the rogue -- except that in order to do so she'll have to shed her quiet widow's weeds and her refined manners and pursue the man. Is Clara up to the job? Dalton Montmorency is about to discover that dodging assassins is nothing compared to trying to elude a single-minded and angry young lady resolved to have her pound of flesh... While "The Impostor" is in many ways a worthy sequel to "The Pretender," I did think that in this novel the spy/intrigue subplot did take a bit of a back seat to the romance subplot. However, Celeste Bradley did such a magnificent job of developing the romance that blossoms between Clara and Dalton, that this slight 'flaw' didn't really matter all that much. As usual the character portrayals were really good, as was the storyline and the manner in which the authour allowed for the story to unfold. If I had any criticism, it was the that things took unnecessarily long for Dalton and Clara to achieve their happily ever-after ending (a whole extra chapter in fact). But (again) this is a very minor quibble, not worth mentioning. All in all, a magnificent 4 star read. Comment | | (Report this)