A Solitary Rose Fantasy Romance
Wild Rose Press
August 14, 2023
Kindle
221
Amazon
Henry Dawson, sorcerer and apothecary assistant, works to support his mother and younger siblings after his father’s investments and consequent death leave them penniless. Invited to woo a reclusive heiress with magical empathy, he reluctantly accepts, despite a preference for earning his own way.
Emma Ainsworth fears smallpox scars and her hypersensitivity to others’ thoughts make her ineligible for marriage. Sheltered by her aunt and uncle, she has withdrawn from most social life and wears a veil whenever she must go out.
When a serious injury confines Henry to Emma’s estate for the summer, a verbal duel ensues—Emma wants to test her empathy in a sexual relationship, not marry him.
What neither admits is their fear that passion might burn them both.
Reviewed by Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Henry Dawson came from a family with money until his father lost it all. Things got worse when his father died of a heart attack leaving Henry in charge of his two younger siblings and his mother who had no problem spending and guilting Henry into supplying what she wants.
Working as an apothecary assistant making little money, he is offered an opportunity to make much more money with the end result hopefully marrying an heiress. He readily accepts the position of cataloguing the library while secretly attempting to court Emma Ainsworth.
Emma is a young woman who wears a veil whenever she is around strangers due to the pockmarks on her face, the result of smallpox. She is not fooled when her uncle Elwood introduces her to Henry since he is notorious for trying to get her married. It doesn’t take long before Henry realizes that Emma hates him and there is no way he will ever be able to court her both by her actions and her words.
With her aunt and uncle constant attempts to get Henry and Emma together she decides to be friendlier by offering him a day of horse riding, only this good deed takes a turn for the worse when the horse Henry is riding bolts due to thunder breaking his leg. Now Henry will have to stay until his leg is healed, which no doubt will take time.
Emma’s hope of getting rid of Henry sooner rather than later doesn’t work out for her and in addition her aunt and uncle put his care on her shoulders. Henry is bedridden and requires help with everything, feeding, dressing and using a bedpan. The only thing going for Henry in Emma’s eyes is his ability to block out her empathic abilities, leaving him a blank slate she can’t read.
Then Emma presents him with another money-making proposition, have sex with her. This is 1814 and for an heiress to proposition a man for sex is something no one would believe and that goes for Henry as well. Emma comes up with some crazy idea that since she can’t read his emotions, he is the best suited to bed her. She is worried that when she does find a man and she has no doubt that her uncle will be sending suitors her way that she has sex with a man that will let her know what sex is like without emotions in play.
Both Henry and Emma did not consider how difficult it would be in the height of an orgasm for him to keep his shields in place. Now Henry is filled with guilt, having taken Emma’s virginity and being unwilling to marry her because of that. Emma decides they should marry, and they do what they always do, fight. Henry’s only course of action is to run away as soon as his cast is off, and he is ambulatory.
Emma’s aunt and uncle have been informed by Emma of Henry’s proposal and desire to marry her, but Henry knows that as soon as he is gone her uncle will do everything in his power to destroy Henry’s life and ability to find employment.
This was a sweet story, a story of hate turning to love, it is not hard to imagine when everyone knows that hate and love are two emotions that live side by side and can easily cross over the line