As You Desire

Desdemona is a child prodigy; she has a gift for reading dead languages and before her parents died they sacrificed her girlhood to science, toting her around to scientific conferences and having her perform. She escaped into happily-ever-after books, and when her parents died she went to live with her grandfather in Egypt. The grandfather is a scholar and absentminded to the point of being neglectful; but at least he loves Desdemona and wants her to be happy.

Desdemona arrived in Egypt at the age of 17. She immediately fell head over heels for Harry Braxton; and, enthusiastically but rashly, she propositioned him. But he spurned her, wounding her deeply and causing her to mistrust him.

Braxton is dislexic. He had a miserable childhood show more in England, where he was treated like an idiot, and escaped to Egypt where he can hide his disability and find a use for his tremendous intellect...he can read heiroglyphs, because he can touch them, and he can hire scribes to write for him. He's very sensitive about his problem, however, after years spent being teased and taunted.

Braxton has loved Desdemona almost since he met her. He turned her down because she was, at 17, young and innocent - not somebody he was willing to take advantage of. Unfortunately, in the process he hurt her horribly. His reputation as a cavalier adventurer only cements Desdemona's mistrust of him.

In "As You Desire," five years after Desdemona's initial offer, Braxton and Desdemona are friends - Braxton is resigned to the role of hopeless, long-suffering lover; Desdemona has the habit of denying her feelings.

The book sends the pair on a host of merry adventures. Brockway does a magnificent job of capturing the setting and the social scene of Cairo in the late nineteenth century; her collection of genteel exiles and brash adventurers provide a magnificent backdrop for the romance itself, incredibly vivid and fun. Her integration of ancient Egyptian history and art is great too.

Both Desdemona and Braxton are spunky, totally captivating characters. Braxton's total perfection is made even more appealing (because it is more human) because of his struggle with dislexia...and Desdemona's beauty and brilliance are, likewise, tempered by the sentimental fantasy life she nourishes in romances, the leftover of a very lonely childhood.

It's well-written, well-plotted, well-paced, extremely satisfying. Bravo! show less

Desdemona Carlisle was a child prodigy -- she can read 12 languages -- who lives in Egypt with her grandfather in the late 19th century. Harry Braxton is a amateur Egyptologist with loose morals but strong priciples. At the beginning of the book, the two already know each other and have been friends for years. It's the arrival of Harry's cousin, Lord Blake Ravenscroft, that tells Harry he has to either confront his feelings for Desdemona or risk losing her forever.

I stayed up past my bedtime to finish this book, which is revealing in itself. As a reader, I tend to stick to medieval or Regency novels, but I was intrigued by the book's description after reading about it on The Romance Reader's Top 100 Romances, where it's listed at No. show more 51. I enjoyed the story told here and the change in setting was a nice break from Jolly Old England. I really, really enjoyed Dizzy (Harry's nickname for Desdemona) and Harry was no slouch either.

The two of them together, bantering and whatnot, was the most enjoyable aspect of the book for me. In fact, it was how often they aren't together that lessened my enjoyment of the book. There's a lot of tangential scenes that I felt weren't warranted -- for instance, I couldn't care less what secondary character Marta felt about anything, yet had to read a significant amount from her. Likewise, there was a lot seen from Blake's point of view, but it was about a 100 pages in before we hear from Harry.

Another likeable thing about this book is that it did something I love for romance novels to do -- when something we know and understand today is put into the context of history and we get to see how this thing was viewed in the past. In the case of As You Desire, that thing is dyslexia. Harry suffers from it and, while we understand the condition much better these days, we get to see how ignorance played a large role in Harry's view of himself.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to another romance reader. show less

Funny, sweet, sensual (but not graphically so), unexpectedly smart and with just the right amount of angst. [On Desdemona's part, her conflicting desire to be a normal English girl and her love of Egypt. On Harry's, his dyslexia, which he spends so much time hiding from Dizzy that she can't believe he might ever love her and which he believes will make her incapable of loving him (and given his childhood, you can understand his fear).] Much more delightful than the cover copy would lead you to expect.

I enjoyed the last half of this book much more than the first half. After the first chapter, the plot slowed to a crawl and it was hard to keep reading. It was a decent read with a fluffy HEA and obligatory Epilogue boinking, but I think it could've been fine tuned to be so much better. The author has a fantastic grasp on her characters and the chemistry between Harry and Dizzy was fabulous, I just needed more of it.

Pretty good book. I enjoy reading books about archaeology, especially in historical settings. Plus, it was set in Egypt. I loved Harry and Dizzy, even though I felt like Gibbs-slapping her upside the head a few times because she would not pull her head out of her behind and pay attention to what was happening around her!

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this Victorian historical set in Cairo. The hero was an endearing reprobate and the heroine was delightful.

http://ktleyed.blogspot.com/2010/02/as-you-desire-by-connie-brockway.html

In June 21, 2011 I read "The Lady Most Likely... A Novel in Three Parts", I got it because I was an avid Julia Quinn fan. But I ended up falling the hardest for Connie Brockway's part. All 3 of the parts were amazing, but Connie's story stayed with me, so years later -5 to be precise- I ordered "As You Desire", I started last night and I fell in love from chapter one. Have you watched and liked "The Mummy"? This has the same feeling.