The Birth of Blue Satan

I like to consult lists when I am considering what to read.  I find it tremendously satisfying to be able to cross something off my "to-do" list, or to line out another book read.  The Birth of Blue Satan came from a friend's book club list, and it looked interesting.  This is a historical novel, part adventure, part romance, part mystery.  Set in 1715, in the early-Georgian period, I learned much about the political discord of the period.  I was also entertained by the story.  Patricia Wynn, the author, writes romance novels, and this book has that feel without any bodice ripping scenes typical of a historical romance.

A young and dashing Viscount (heir to an earldom), Gideon St. Mars, is wrongly accused of murdering his father.  He is wooing a beautiful (though stupid) woman and finds his hopes of marrying her vanish as he tries to discover who really did kill his father.  He finds an ally in the cousin of the woman he wishes to marry, Hester Kean.  She is true to him, believes in his innocence, and his intellectually his equal.  She is in love with him.  He should be in love with her, but is blinded by the other woman's beauty.  

Some of the plot elements and questions are resolved by the end of the book, but others are not.  I was left wanting answers, which I think was a deliberate choice by Wynn.  This is the first of now three books, so leaving situations unresolved will insure that those who read this first book will want to read the second, and beyond.  I liked the book well enough to buy a used copy of book two, The Spider's Touch, though I only paid a penny for it.