Ever find yourself in a bad spot not of your own making? It’s one thing if you screwed up on your own, but it is another thing when those bricks start falling with a few hitting you on the head. Worse yet, you find yourself in this ticklish spot because you are trying to please someone you love. That’s exactly where Gwendolyn MacAlastair, the heroine of Tracey Goodwin’s regency romance, Dance with Deception finds herself.

Gwendolyn imagined she would marry someday. That is what women of her station did, but definitely not this soon. She is just beginning to enjoy dressing up, going to parties and being pursued by dandified beaus. It is all very amusing, but nothing she would take seriously, and definitely, there’s no one she wants to marry. But that was all before her father, Lachlan MacAlastair declares she must marry before he succumbs to a premature death. The bad news is her father believes their old neighbor, Keir Dunlop, would make a good husband, a man neither Gwendolyn nor her brother can stand.

Gwen wants to make her father happy, but the though of marrying Keir is not appealing, especially since she finds herself attracted to her brother’s friend, Sebastian. The charming Sebastian is also attracted to her. The problems mount as she realizes her fiancé is on his way from Scotland and her father expects her to marry immediately. She finds herself caught in a dance of deception.

Dance with Deception starts out quickly and moves at a good pace incorporating likable secondary characters in Victoria and Tristan. The fathers of Gwendolyn and Sebastian seem rather flat, making them single dimensional villains as opposed to being merely flawed individuals. The chemistry between Sebastian and Gwendolyn is very real and believable. The plot line is rather predictable.

Dance with Deception is an excellent example of a regency romance with likable characters, romantic settings and a clichéd ending. If you like, romances with happy endings, this is the book for you.

Reviewed by Morgan Wyatt
February 2008