The Madison series continues with The Heiress, following The Countess. I find
Lynsay Sands' books to be emotionally entertaining and lively, but
The Heiress doesn't even fall close to my expectations of her writing. The first half of the book
is taken up by the whole backstory of The Countess, which would have been good if you had not read
The Countess. I went from one book to the next and was literally quite bored; I even skipped a page here and there. The last half isn’t quite that great either, to tell you the truth.
The Heiress is
the story of Suzette, who is trying to find a poor husband who would want her incredibly rich dower
so she might pay off her father’s gambling debts. She finds the ideal person in Daniel Woodrow, who was friends with Richard Fairgrave in
The Countess and brought him back to Christiana. Daniel lies about his finances because he is drawn to Suzette and doesn't want any other of the gentlemen to have her; Suzette asks him to marry her.
Saying he will think about it, Daniel continues to dither through half the book while taking liberties with his fiancée. Suzette does not care, since she is half in love with him anyway.
Several attempts have been botched to see them wed and many attempts have been made on Daniel's life;
in The Countess, we thought they were attempts on Richard's life. It
seems that Jeremy Danvers was promised Suzette’s hand in marriage by the man impersonating Richard in
The Countess. Danvers needs Suzette’s money to rebuild his lands and pay off his debts. Suzette agrees to marry him
after receiving a letter that she thinks Daniel wrote telling her that he no longer wants to marry her.
She runs off with Danvers even though she hardly knows him; her father insists on accompanying them, and before long they find out Danvers' true motives. Trying to escape, they end up hogtied together.
That’s when Woodrow rescues them, and all turns out well in the end.
The Heiress earns only two and a half stars simply because Sands did
not have to write the backstory from The Countess at all - and because
Suzette ran off with a stranger. Women can be unpredictable, but to run off with someone you just met simply because you're heartbroken?