MEMOIRS OF A SCANDALOUS RED DRESS

The Bachelor Chronicles, Book 5

Elizabeth Boyle

Avon

ISBN: 978-0-06-137324-4

May 2009

Historical Romance

At last we read, Lady Philippa Knolles made the ultimate sacrifice for the man she loved by marrying another.  Twenty-three years later, Lady Gossett’s past has come full-circle including secrets she hoped would stay buried forever.  Captain Thomas Dashwell was dumbstruck when Pippen married Lord Gossett.  Hurt, Dash left London in haste hoping never to encounter her, his Circe again.

Upon arriving at the docks to meet her son, a newly appointed Captain in the British Navy; Philippa spies a young man that looks eerily familiar and before she could reconcile it properly, she faints.  Waking some time later at home, she overhears her children discussing her incident even suggesting that she is not in her right mind.  Looking out her window she sees the same young man and quietly slips out the house across the street toward him.  Nothing could prepare her for what comes next.  Captain Thomas Dashwell was in a drunken stupor and no real command of his ship.  Luckily, he has Nate but will he be as appreciative when discovers whom is aboard the Ellis Anne.  It couldn’t be her; surely his mind is playing tricks on him Lady Gossett would not risk her reputation to consort with the likes of him again.  Dash was about to receive a rude-awakening.

MEMOIRS OF A SCANDALOUS RED DRESS is the perfect follow-up to CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE BLACK GOWN, sacrifice, scandal and secrets are presented in a great story.  I love the way Pippen and Dash’s story is told, readers will get flashbacks to their first encounter and subsequent journey throughout the book.  The path that each took after Pippen’s marriage to Lord Gossett and how Dash took to the seas and never forgotten her are seamlessly written.  One month aboard the Ellis Anne, old feelings that had been simmering resurface and Pippen is yet again on the brink of scandal because of Dash.  On American soil, Captain John Gossett attempts to retrieve his mother, but is shaken to core by a startling discovery.  Three men, two sons and one woman is more than enough to pique this readers interest and sustain to the last page.

Reviewed by Monica Solomon

Rating: 4