Do you ever long for the by-gone days of tall ships, full skirts, and exotic accents? A time where women had demure downcast eyes while wielding a flirtatious fan? If so, then perhaps you would like a trip back to Merry Old England during the Regency period. Tame My Heart by Joan Fox is the perfect vehicle to take you there.

After making the painful decision to stay behind and comfort her English grandmother, Briella tearfully bids her brother and wife goodbye.The genteel world of London is shocked by her fiery beauty and impulsive manner. Upon her arrival, one of the first things she does is berate a merchant who's whipping his fallen horse. Briella pays the abusive owner off and commandeers the noble animal for her own riding horse.

One morning, much against her grandmother's wishes, she races the horse through Hyde Park dressed as a boy and riding astride. Briella finds the horse to be a little more than she expected. Three gentlemen watch the antics of the fabulous black horse and the boy who's attempting to control him. The horse tears through the park, and the gentlemen ride after supposing he's a runaway. Briella finally pulls her horse, Ebony Knight, in after a short run and is surprised at the striking man with the cobalt blue eyes so close to her. His two friends canter up and she realizes she's in a fix. Proper ladies don't go tearing around the park astride and certainly not in men's clothes. They especially don't do such things if they want to meet eligible gentleman. It takes only one look for Briella to decide she definitely wants to meet Mr. Blue Eyes-but only when she's back to being Lady Briella Thorndyke.

Tame My Heart follows the standard format so it should satisfy fans of the regency romance. The plot line includes a beautiful heroine: noble, feisty, but at a personal low point in her life. There is, of course, the sophisticated gentleman, who is a bit deeper than his shallow friends. The conflict is the tightrope they must walk between proper behavior of the English elite and how they really want to act. I'll leave those actions to your imagination.

The story was rather too pat. I knew exactly what each character would do or say before they did it because it had been done so often in other books. The Irishman went in and out of dialect leaving me with the impression that he was Irish only part of the time. On the whole, the book is a nice read--if predictable. However, that often is the very reason a person reaches for a genre novel: so they can depend on it having a happy ending.

Reviewed by Morgan Wyatt
© December 2004