Review: Darling Beast

Darling Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel features Apollo Greaves, Viscount Kilbourne, the twin brother of Artemis from the previous book, who was wrongly accused of murdering his three best friends and was imprisoned in Bedlam for four years until Artemis' (now) husband the Duke of Wakefield broke him out. Apollo is now living in the ruins of Harte's Folly, acting as head gardener as he and Asa Makepiece try to rebuild the folly from the ashes. After being savagely beaten by the guards in Bedlam Apollo has been unable to speak for nine months because one sadistic guard deliberately stood on his windpipe.

Lily Stump is an actress, better known as Robin Goodfellow, she agreed to act exclusively for Harte's Folly but when it burned down she found her former boss had blackballed her in every other theatre in London. Now she, her seven year old son Indio and her former nurse/ maid Maude live in the least ruined part of the Folly while Lily desperately tries to write a play to bring in some money and put food on the table.

Inevitably Apollo and Lily's son run into each other in the gardens and Lily thinks the great hulking man with the broken nose who cannot speak is mentally deficient, yet very soon she realises there is more to 'Caliban', as Indio names Apollo, than first meets the eye.

There were plots within plots within plots in this book. First, there is a mystery over the identity of Indio's father. Then there is the mystery of who killed Apollo's friends/ who would want to frame Apollo, then there is the mystery of why Valentine Napier, Duke of Montgomery is so interested in Apollo's identity, then there is the burgeoning romance between the Duke of Wakefield's sister Lady Phoebe Batten, who is slowly going blind, and Captain James Trevillion who was the man who originally arrested Apollo for the murders and tried to capture the Duke of Wakefield when he was the Ghost of St Giles. And don't get me started on the little nugget about who Valentine has his eye on ...

I liked it but I didn't love it. A full 57% of the book was spent scene setting and introducing the characters and then everything got resolved too quickly for my liking.

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