Books › The Devil on Horseback
The Devil on Horseback
672 pages
A sweeping, perilous romance that trades the quiet constraints of an English manor for the blood-soaked streets of revolutionary France.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like being swept up in a classic, tempestuous melodrama where the stakes are as high as the guillotine's blade. It begins with the quiet, simmering class tensions of an English country estate before accelerating into a breathless, perilous escape through revolutionary France. The atmosphere is thick with brooding danger and forbidden attraction, anchored by a quintessential dark, demanding hero and a heroine who must rapidly shed her innocence to survive. The prose is earnest and vividly descriptive, leaning into the heightened emotions of old-school historical romance. It is a perfect escape for readers who love their historical fiction laced with gothic undertones, sweeping political chaos, and a love story forged in the fires of revolution.
- Mood
- sweeping
- perilous
- atmospheric
- brooding
- Tone
- dramatic
- earnest
- suspenseful
- romantic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- dangerous attraction · class divides · survival amidst chaos · loss of innocence · the allure of the forbidden
- The writing
- Classic and emotionally heightened, favoring dramatic declarations and vivid, sweeping historical backdrops.
- The arc
- The protagonist moves from naive romantic entanglements in a quiet English village to harrowing survival and passionate awakening in revolutionary France.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave old-school historical romances featuring brooding, dangerous heroes and heroines thrust into sweeping political peril.
Content notes
- violence
- execution by guillotine
- classism
- threat of sexual coercion
About the book
Minella Maddox grew up on a great English estate. But as the schoolmistress' daughter, her place was not, and never could be, at beautiful Derringham Manor. And that is where the trouble started, for Derringham's young heir thought he saw in Minella just the kind of wife he wanted. But a dark and cruelly handsome French count, who always got what he wanted, thought she was just the kind of mistress he had to have. Not for nothing was he called the Devil on Horseback.
Yet Minella's humble heritage was to prove more precious that titles and riches, for it freed her to follow her heart, leading her into adventures and dangers she had never dreamed of. It put her directly in the path of another woman's hatred, swept her up into the deadly terrors of the French Revolution and, finally, carried her into the arms of the great and powerful man she loved.
Description from Open Library.
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