Gaelen Foley: Her Only Desire

Her Only Desire: B
Georgiana Knight & Ian Prescott

Ian Prescott, the Marquess of Griffith, had come to India to stop the Maratha Empire from going to war with Britain. Ian was counting on the help of Gabriel and Derek Knight, British cavalry officers serving in India, but Ian never expected that their sister, Georgiana, would also want to play a part in the diplomatic negotiations. Just like her aunt and namesake, the infamous "Hawkscliffe Harlot," Georgiana refuses to let any man tell her what to do. But when the diplomatic mission turns dangerous, Georgiana finds herself leaving India for England, where her life becomes even more entangled with the one man who just might be her match... (amazon)


A pseudo-continuation of Foley’s famous the “Knight Miscellany” series, this story takes place in exotic India. (I say pseudo-continuation because these Knights are the cousins of the Knights from the previous books: The Duke, Lord of Fire, Lord of Ice…)

When Ian meets Georgie, she’s causing ruckus because she prevents her friend, Lakshmi, from an old Indian custom where a widow commits suicide following the death of her husband. Ian is taken with the fiery, black-haired blue-eyed beauty, but prevents her from following him to meet with the King of India. Ian is a British diplomat, wanting to prevent war and from people to die, so his decision to meet with the King in order to get the King to sign a treaty of neutrality is a respectable one.

Georgie, who is famous for her humanitarian deeds and close relations with the Indian people is wary of Ian’s motive (the British who usally come to India are scumbags, looking to get rich) but when she finds out that he’s a good guy, she is determined to help him. After all, her close friend Meena is the current “favorite” from his thirty wives and hundreds of concubines.

Infuriatingly, Georgie escapes the house arrest Ian has ordered for her and travels to where the King is, wanting to see her friend and her older twin brothers, Derek and Grabriel Knight, whom she hasn’t seen in a year.

It’s there that drama and suspicion thickens…


I can’t help but to think that while Georgie comes off as a very strong and independent woman, she sounds a bit… spoiled. Bratty. And I don’t know if it’s Ms. Foley’s writing style/ characterization that leads me to believe this, but I do. And it’s a little annoying. She just sounds like a fiery, young, naïve, fiercely loyal but clueless girl – one who is unwilling to bend because of what she believes is right.

She improves, though, to the relief of this reader.

Ian is hunky and has a tortured, miserable past of his own – one that isn’t new (I feel like I read it somewhere else…) but enough to mark him as a tortured hero.

The chemistry between the characters is hot enough; the scene where Georgie chooses to give herself to Ian is unpleasant – in that it is …just… if I was a heroine of a romance novel, I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. (Hah.)

I’m not even trying to calculate the age difference between Georgie and Ian. I don’t even want to know. I think it would gross me out…

Overall, the story is nice. The “suspense” isn’t really a romance, so don’t be expecting one. It’s one of those stories where the suspense is used to keep the plot moving. Enjoyable and different (India seems exotic and wonderful, even though the activist in me cringes at the well-being of the British in India. …oh how the nations imperialized and took over back in the day…).