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Heather Boyd

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Engaging the Enemy (The Wild Randalls Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Heather Boyd (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

2,489

Book 1 of 4: Wild Randalls

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Every great family has a few secrets. The wild Randalls of Hampshire excel at them.

A lady should be the image of elegance and calm, but those words have never applied to Mercy, Duchess of Romsey. A widow and mother, Mercy is lonely and floundering to keep the estate afloat. When she discovers the existence of Leopold Randall, her husband’s estranged cousin, Mercy immediately offers to help him locate his missing siblings if he helps her return the estate to order.

Leopold has returned to Hampshire for only one purpose—to learn the fate of his missing siblings. Unfortunately, the current duchess is clueless and out of her depth. Her struggle tugs at Leopold’s sense of duty and her bold nature tempts him unbearably. When Leopold discovers their lives are forever entwined, he vows to protect Mercy and her innocent son.

ENGAGING THE ENEMY is a full-length steamy regency historical romance from USA Today bestselling author Heather Boyd. It's the first book in the emotional four book Wild Randalls quartet.

Wild Randalls Series
Book 1: Engaging the Enemy (Leopold and Mercy)
Book 2: Forsaking the Prize (Tobias and Blythe)
Book 3: Guarding the Spoils (Oliver and Elizabeth)
Book 4: Hunting the Hero (Constantine and Rosemary)

Book 1 of 4

Wild Randalls
Print length

252 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

February 13, 2012
File size

3477 KB
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Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

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Editorial Reviews

Review

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Lovely book, gripping read and "wow" ending." ~ Long and Short Reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Leopold and Mercy are a perfect couple in this swoon worthy story. What a hero (sigh). Great story with lots of action, mystery and intrigue. I enjoyed it so much, had to purchase book 2." ~ I. Kohn, Amazon reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Loved the story the three times I read it. Well done!" ~ Janie_tx, Amazon reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "A great love story and a great mystery and many more adventures to follow with this first beginning of a very complicated family." ~ Kindle customer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Oh, I cannot wait to read the next book in the series!" ~ Lili, Amazon reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Mystery. Thriller. Suspense. Romance. It had it all. The characters were strong and perfectly suited for the story and each other." ~ Lady8ug9, Amazon reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Well written smooth reading characters were wonderful I couldn't put the book down." ~ Amazon reviewer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Brilliant story line. Interest, intrigue, love, betrayal all wrapped up in a story which one wants to read to the end." ~ lubel, Amazon reviewer

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling Author Heather Boyd believes every character she creates deserves their own happily-ever-after-no matter how much trouble she puts them through. With that goal in mind, she writes steamy romances that skirt the boundaries of propriety to keep readers enthralled until the wee hours of the morning. Heather has published over fifty regency romance novels and shorter works full of daring seductions and distinguished rogues. She lives north of Sydney, Australia, with her trio of rogues and a four-legged overlord. To learn more visit www.Heather-Boyd.com

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0078H7FO2
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Heather Boyd (February 13, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 13, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3477 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 252 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #9,019 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #19 in Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
- #35 in Historical Regency Fiction
- #166 in Regency Historical Romance

Customer Reviews:
2,489

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Heather Boyd

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Heather Boyd is a USA Today Bestselling Author based in Newcastle, Australia. She has published over 50 steamy Regency Historical Romances and believes every character she creates deserves their own happily-ever-after—no matter how much trouble she puts them through. With that goal in mind, she writes romances that skirt the boundaries of propriety to keep readers enthralled until the wee hours of the morning. Her bestselling series includes The Distinguished Rogues, Wild Randalls, and Saints and Sinners series. She is always writing a romance and her current focus is a new 5 book series, Scandalous Brides, which began with Wicked with Him.

You can find out more at about her work at www. Heather-Boyd. com

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

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Kindle Customer

Leopold Randall will have to protect the Duchess & the future Duke of Romsey Abbey

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2023

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Mercy, Duchess of Romsey a widow & mother to the future to the Duke of Romsey. is lonely & barely keeping the estate afloat. Mercy discovers her husband’s estranged cousins' Leopold Randall, who she seems familiar to her. Mercy immediately offers to help him locate his missing siblings if he help bring the estate profitable.

Leopold came back to the Hampshire on a mission. To find out the fate & whereabouts of his missing siblings. What he realizes is that the Duchess is unaware of what is needed to handle the responsibility of the Romsey Abbey. Unfortunately, that is what the suspect wants when it comes to murdering Mercy & the future Duke of Romsey.
Mercy's fears tug at Leopold’s sense of duty. He is determined, focus & a true gentleman, which is exactly what the Duchess & her son Edwin need in their lives'. Leopold is attracted to Mercy's bold character. Which he finds quite distracting. Especially when he is determined to protect the Romsey heir. The big secret within the walls of the Romsey Abbey is what Leopold finally discovers from the ultimatum that the Old Duke forced upon Leopold several years ago. This secret affects the lives of the entire Romsey family. Which also holds & entwined their lives forever. Leopold vows to protect Mercy and their innocent future Duke.

The entire series, is intriguing, suspenseful. There is heart, logic & emotion within each characters added to the series. Read the remaining saga of the Wild Randall family.

Helpful

C Howard

Mystery-Intrigue-Thriller-Steamy Regency Romance

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2022

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This book seems to be one people either love or hate. The background and story unfold slowly. I found the key character development adequate, although some do remain poorly defined. The old Duke used his family members in cruel schemes to further his own devious schemes. Nothing was beyond him—blackmail, murder, tearing apart family units, kidnapping, impressing young relatives on ships, even sex trafficking. So, amid the chaos following his death and that of his acknowledged son, the estate is left in shambles with at least as many enemies as friends for the juvenile heir. Leopold is a cousin searching for his siblings who all disappeared while he was being manipulated by the old Duke’s blackmail. However, the revelations twist him into knots and the author does pull out a HEA, but it takes the rest of the series to find out what happened to his brothers and sister. Yet I found myself on a speeding roller coaster turning page after page to see what happened next!

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2021

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First of all, in my review's ~ I never give away any of the story ~ BUT ~ I LOVED THIS BOOK !! What a great well written story ~ I pictured the scenes in my head ~ the characters just danced into life !!
IMHO THIS BOOK SHOULD BE MADE INTO A MOVIE ~ YES, It WAS THAT GOOD OR EVEN MINI SERIES ! SEND IT TO PBS OR A PRODUCER ~
I WILL RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL MY READER FRIENDS ~ ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS ~ I HAVE EVER READ ~ I am a avid reader ~ I could not put this book down. When, I was bone tired, I had to go lay down and take this book with me. A real PAGE TURNER ! This BOOK WAS DEEP IN THE MIND, I LOVED IT ! YOUR A AWESOME WRITER !!
Thank you ! It was a pleasure to read.

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021

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The actual plot line of this book is quite interesting. But I found myself very disappointed in its execution as well as the poor character development, especially of the heroine.

I’ll just say up front that the following paragraphs will contain spoilers to some extent, but some of the information happened so early in the book that the point is moot.

The premise of this book is that of a widowed Duchess (the heroine) with a four-year-old son, and she is being threatened by some unknown source who promises to hurt her and/or her son. The other part of the story is the return of a banished cousin of the dowager duchess’ dead husband and equally dead father-in-law. He is also the heir apparent to the infant duke, her son. So far, so good.

Our hero was sent away by the older duke on the promise the duke would look after the hero’s two brothers and sisters. But while he was gone, his siblings were hidden away by the duke in order to keep our hero doing his bidding.

After the old Duke and his son’s death, the hero returns to England from India to try and get information about the location of his missing siblings. But there’s a wrench in the works. The hero, upon seeing the young Duke, who is his cousin, is convinced the boy is actually his own son. Five years prior, he had been forced by the old Duke to take an unknown woman (in the dark) to bed as part of the agreement to keep his siblings safe. The age of the boy perfectly fits this timeline. Plus they share dimples. Things start to deteriorate at this point.

The hero discovers that the duchess has no knowledge of him or his missing family. But she talks him into letting her help him if he helps her with the estate.

I wanted to like the duchess, as she seems a free spirit, but she is just stupid. Seriously dumb. She can’t manage the estate, can’t even hire a new steward or enough maids and groundskeepers. She pays servants a pittance causing them to be rife for disloyalty. She lets her much younger, crazy sister (who I hated with a passion, and she is the next book’s heroine) boss her around. The heroine takes her son on a picnic when she has received threatening letters and dead animals placed on her bed. And on top of all that, she throws herself at the hero like a barroom floozy. I have no problem with a woman who owns her sexuality, but she had all the finesse of a sledgehammer.

Aside from the bad character traits of our heroine, there is little backstory. An absolute pity, because it might have made her more likable. Her brother is an Earl (I think) who married her off to a duke’s son and heir, but given her personality, how and why? And why has he left her to wallow in her ineptitude? Why is he the appointed trustee over the young duke when he is absent from their lives? What was her marriage actually like? Her husband was sickly, but we are given very few clues as to them as a couple. And above all, we DO NOT KNOW HOW the old duke forced her to have sex with a stranger to secure an heir or WHY her husband agreed to it and apparently bullied her into it as well. So frustrating.

Meanwhile, sparks fly between the hero and duchess, but he has angst. Not good enough, guilt over cuckolding his cousin and siring a child, and needing to find his siblings. The heroine continues to lift up her skirts tempting him to her bed. Neither of these two inspire much emotion other than annoyance.

In the midst of this hot mess, you have a bastard son of the old duke and his two sons working in the duchess’ household unbeknownst to her, a weird butler, a suitor of the duchess who won’t take no for an answer, a local barkeep and town gossip who seems to know more than he should, a hero who is basically bringing everyone and the kitchen sink into his confidence although he doesn’t know who the enemy is, the strange sister of the heroine, the strange bossy best friend of the heroine, and a coded journal of the duke(s) with entries occurring after his death. Yeah, you read that right.

There are cliffhangers aplenty. We don’t even see the H and h married. The annoying sister is in a fugue state. One of the hero’s brothers reappears in the 11th hour. And there may well be a third evil person plotting against the duchess and her young son.

If this book is ever revamped, I would suggest starting with a prologue that includes the old duke and his son forcing the young duchess to have sex with a stranger. And I would have included that sex scene in the prologue. It would add depth to both the H and h and give us a true villain(s) instead of killing him/them off before the story even begins.

This book was free, thankfully. I’ve liked other books by this author. And I will pay the $2.99 for the next book in the series even though I don’t know how I can be convinced to like the shrewish sister. But if things don’t improve, I might wait for the rest to be offered on KU or $0.99.

19 people found this helpful

Helpful

DJ LBC

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2018

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The author has a great affinity for pulling a reader into the story. The characters come alive and you feel as if you are a bystander looking in. You want to take Edwin into your arms & hold him tight, he is so adorable. You want to take Mercy's sister Blythe & throttle her til she comes alive again. You want to kick Lady Anne & her slimy brother Lord Shaw far far away from Mercy & her son. Bravo for wanting me to intervene knowing I cannot, for it is only a story, yet a well written one.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

A R G

Excellent Read

Reviewed in Canada on September 22, 2022

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Excellent plot line. Good detail. Could do with a little more character development. It is good that the characters are involved enough to warrant another three books. If they are as good as this one it will be a very good series.

Heidiho

Wronged by his uncle Leopald returns to Romsey to find much more than he bargained for.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

He finds Mercy, the wife of his cousin and with more relation to himself than he'd ever thought.
Leopard had returned to find his family. All wronged by Mercy's father in law, the old duke.
He needed clues to find his family, kept from him whilst he had done the file's bidding.
What he found was not what he expected,feared but longer for at the same time.
God, he was in trouble.
Secrets, lies, deception, threats and surprises. Far too many of the latter for either Leopald or Mercy to have anticipated. But, also passion, love and family. Lots of it.
Enjoy!

3 people found this helpful

Linda A

Delightful story

Reviewed in Australia on September 27, 2017

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This is the first book by this author I have read. I throughly enjoyed this story. The lead women characters were strong and likeable as were the men. The plot had lots of twists and turns and kept me interested. I was loathe to put it down. I cannot wait for the next book in the series. I highly recommend this book

One person found this helpful

Winnie Robinson

Engaging storyline . . .

Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2021

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I have to say I found this storyline a bit atypical for an HR. Mercy and her son are alone at the Abey after the death of her husband. Leopold has come home looking for his siblings that he was forcibly separated from by the Old Duke years ago. Someone is threatening Mercy, and there are plenty of candidates of who that might be. I don't want to get into any details and give anything away - just know that the storyline is slightly different from most HRs. There is an HEA, however, there are a couple of loose ends that seem like they will continue on into the next book. I, for one, am looking forward to finding out what happened to the rest of the Randalls.
There definitely are some editing issues throughout the book, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of the story which I did find very engaging. It's my first read by this author, and I did thoroughly enjoy it. I found there was a good mix of romance and mystery. We are privy to Randalls backstory, but I just realized we are never really told anything about Mercys past as in how she even came to be married to Edwin. We only hear about her life since then. There are some secondary characters and issues that are not resolved but hopefully will be in the rest of the series. If you are someone who wants every lose end tied up at the end of the story, then this book may not be for you. Maybe there could be a smidge more character development, but I didn't find it to be a glaring ommission because there were so many other facets to the story besides Mercy and Leopolds relationship. This is not a clean read, but the sex is not over the top or all the book is about. All in all, a solid 4 star read.