This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Debs Carr
Lily Stump is a well-known and much admired actress forced to live in the burnt out remains of a theatre where she once played. She lives with her son, Indio, his little whippet Daff and her protective maid, Maude. When Indio comes across a huge, mute man working in the ruined theatre gardens Lily overcomes her concern about having this stranger around her son, and invites him into her home for something to eat. Although he pretends to be simple, Lily soon works out that the man her son calls Caliban is anything but. Slowly the two become friends and Lily is unable to ignore her growing attraction for him.
Caliban is actually Apollo Greaves, Viscount Kilbourne, he has escaped from Bedlam after four traumatic years thanks to his twin sister’s help. Unable to speak due to a near fatal beating he received in the nightmarish place, he is desperate to trace the person who branded him a killer having framed him for the murders of three of his friends. Just when he and Lily become close Captain Trevillion, the soldier who originally arrested him, arrives at the gardens. The men fight and he realizes that Apollo wasn’t the man behind the murders. Guilt-ridden, Trevillion determines to find the real culprit so that Apollo can clear his name and take his rightful place in society once more.
I hadn’t read any of Elizabeth Hoyt’s other books so didn’t know what to expect from Darling Beast. The book is part of the Maiden Lane series, but is also a standalone story and it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book that I hadn’t read any of the others in the series. I loved the growing attraction between Lily and Apollo and his sweet relationship with her young son. The constant threat of him being discovered, re-arrested and sent back to Bedlam was worrying, as well as how Lily would react to discover that the man she thought she knew was in fact someone completely different.8/10