The Bastard by Brenda Novak

Summary:

To some men honor is just a word….

Jeannette Boucher, a young French beauty from a family left penniless by the revolution, must marry against her will to save them all from ruin. But almost immediately after the vows are spoken, she learns that her old English husband is impotent—and in his desire for an heir, he plans to compromise her in the worst way.

Determined to escape such a fate, she stows away on one of His Majesty’s frigates. But a woman alone is in constant danger.

To Lieutenant Treynor, honor means everything….

Born a bastard to a wayward marquise, Lieutenant Crawford Treynor was given to a poor farmer to raise and was maltreated until he ran away to join the Royal Navy. Treynor is determined to prove he’s as good as any other man and rise to captain his own frigate. But once he finds Jeannette aboard The Tempest he must decide whether to return her to the man he knows would abuse her—or risk everything, even his life, to keep her safe.
summary taken from Goodreads.com

I doubt whether I would have known that this book even existed if not for a friend in one of my groups on Goodreads for saying how much she enjoyed this. So I resolved to get my hands on a copy and much to my utter delight the lovely people over at NetGalley had it available.
I LOVED this book! You probably already know that I love historical romances but if you didn't know it before than you certainly do now. This book had everything I like in a historical romance.
 There was war, love, deception and adventure on the high seas! The story of Jeannette and Treynor was steamy and filled with the usual macho male and the damsel in distress but it was written phenomenally well.
The author Brenda Novak seemed to try and in my opinion she succeeded in giving Jeannette a brain! Oh how it irks me when writers make their heroines dimwits, it was nice to see a young girl with a brain who was not afraid to speak for herself and defend herself more and more as the book went on. I really liked Jeannette's character and I also liked Treynor. I especially liked Treynor even more at the end when he reconciled with his mother nearer the end and I appreciate that the author added another aspect to the story by including Treynor's mother in the story and how their relationship past, present and future evolved.
I sincerely hope that the author Brenda Novak continues to write more in this genre because I devoured this book. I stayed up until 3:30 am here and read the book on my laptop in all of 5 hours. It was wonderful and I can't wait to read more books by this amazing author.
I highly recommend this to fans of historical romance as well as people who are wanting to give this genre a try.

* I recieved a copy of this book via Netgalley from the publisher in exchange for my free and honest review.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★