Maddie slowly gains the institution’s trust to be Jervaulx’s carer and eventually accompanies him out of the asylum to his mother’s home and then through an escape, a hurried marriage, an explosively hawt consummation and lots of guilt, remorse, guilt, oh dear you are not a frugal man, guilt guilt but I love him/but I love her drama mama plot twists that bring the tension levels to an all time high. Jervaulx was institutionalised by his family who believed he was incapacitated due to his immorality rather than what to our modern eyes is a stroke. Maddie and her father go to work in a lunatic asylum for Maddie to discover the Duke chained like an animal. A woman who has taken care of her blind father since her mother passed away many years earlier. Jervaulx has bucket loads of swag and confidence and leads a profligate life of calculated excess which culminates in his being challenged to a duel where he falls ill. Maddie is a devout Quaker whose mathematician father writes scholarly mathematical thingamajiggy papers with Jervaulx thus precipitating Jervaulx and Maddie’s first meeting. So the Duke of Jervaulx is a bit of a player as well as a brilliant mathematician. Earlier this year I was doing a lot of driving through New South Wales with my husband and, on the final leg (but of course), we decided to download the audiobook which had been recommended by a whole lot of audio savvy tweeps. But I just could not find the dedicated time that I needed to sit down to 500+ pages of intense reading so it sat on my TBR for over a decade. I have read Kinsale’s The Prince of Midnight and (shameless name dropping here) had a rather interesting twittversation with Kinsale about its ending back in the early twitter days of yore. I have known about this novel since forever – how could I not with Kat Mayo as one of my borrowers. I’m reallllly late to the Flowers from the Storm party.

I really love Secret Baby Tropes and though I would not list it as Numero Uno trope (which is Friends to Lovers) it is however the trope for which I have read a TBR book for this month. Only a modest Quaker girl can reach him, but when she helps him to escape, she’s swept into his glittering aristocratic world, her life torn apart by his desperate attempt to save himself. He can’t talk and he’s locked in a lunatic asylum. Narrated by the sublime Nicholas Boulton. Let it be known that there are lots and lots of spoilery spoilers ahead so look away if you one day plan to read Flowers from the Storm. It is time for SuperWendy’s TBR challenge again and this month the theme is Your Favourite Trope.

Flowers from the storm by laura kinsale