Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    How to Capture a Countess
    How to Capture a Countess
    How to Capture a Countess
    Audiobook8 hours

    How to Capture a Countess

    Written by Karen Hawkins

    Narrated by Alison Larkin

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Urged by her favorite nephew, the intimidating Duchess of Roxburghe agrees to transform a thorny Scottish rose into a lovely bloom. But even she isn't prepared for fiery Rose Balfour.

    At seventeen, Rose fell wildly in love with Lord Alton Sinclair, known as Lord Sin for his wicked ways. Stung by his indifference, the starry-eyed girl tried to win an illicit kiss, but then panicked and pushed the notorious rakehell into a fountain. Leaving Lord Sin floating among the lily pads to the mocking laughter of his peers, Rose escaped back to the obscurity of the Scottish countryside.

    Six years later, Sin convinces his aunt, the Duchess of Roxburghe, to invite Rose to her annual house party, where he plans to get revenge by making Rose the laughingstock of polite society. To his astonishment, he finds she has become an alluring woman who threatens to turn the tables on his nefarious plans. Thus Sin and Rose begin an epic battle of the sexes that becomes more passionate at every turn. Eventually, one will have to surrender . . . but to vengeance? Or to love's deepest passion?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 15, 2013
    ISBN9781452682990
    Author

    Karen Hawkins

    Karen Hawkins was raised in Tennessee, a member of a huge extended family that included her brother and sister, an adopted sister, numerous foster siblings, and various exchange students. In order to escape the chaos (and while hiding when it was her turn to do the dishes), she would huddle under the comforter on her bed with a flashlight and a book, a habit she still embraces to this day.

    More audiobooks from Karen Hawkins

    Related to How to Capture a Countess

    Titles in the series (2)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Royalty Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Prince William’s Statement

      May 24, 2021

      Prince William’s Statement
      1 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      Nothing to Declare

      Jun 15, 2019

      All the senior partners were having a laugh about a movie they’d seen. Forty-Five Years. Something, something about the movie taking forty-five years to sit through. The woman McGuinness thought he recognized was in it with them at the far end of the

      24 min read

    • Article

      Mrs. Robinson

      Dec 10, 2022

      “Do you think she will like me?” The question slipped from between my lips and hung suspended in the air. My gloved hands were in my lap, and I was wringing them. As the carriage conveyed us and we neared my new husband’s ancestral home, Ashby Hall,

      20 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Simpson Learns A Lesson

      Jul 29, 2021

      Mrs Simpson Learns A Lesson
      4 min read

    • Article

      STEPPING Out

      Mar 4, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Glove

      Mar 4, 2024

      The Glove
      8 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      STEPPING Out

      Feb 26, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      10 min read

    • Article

      STEPPING Out

      Feb 12, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      Love Is All Around

      Jan 16, 2020

      IT’S a leap year, gulp. As if the Valentine’s gush isn’t enough, now the girlfriends and single ladies among us must publicly announce our undying love by proposal. I’ve spent at least two leap years and nearly a decade of Valentine’s Days concentrat

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Invitation

      Aug 21, 2023

      York, October 1644 Before I’ve even mustered the courage to knock, the door to the townhouse flings open. I drop my hand. “It is me, John Falmouth,” I say and wince at how loud my voice carries into the night. My greeting falters when I look up and n

      6 min read

    • Article

      Spellbinding Reads

      Nov 11, 2022

      READ THIS BY RACHEL JOYCE DOUBLEDAY In The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, the title character set off on foot on his unlikely trek across England to find his old friend Queenie Hennessy, while 1his embittered and grieving wife, Maureen, was le

      3 min read

    • Article

      Whether In Song Or In Silence, Shane MacGowan Exuded The Very Essence Of Life

      Dec 1, 2023

      Shane MacGowan and I sat in near silence for two hours last year. We were at his home, just outside Dublin. I’d been warned by his wife, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke, that he was depressed and anxious, not really in the mood to talk. But nothing c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two

      Oct 30, 2019

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two
      25 min read

    • Article

      A Book for the Moment: On Helen Weinzweig’s ‘Basic Black with Pearls’

      Jun 1, 2018

      This post was produced in partnership with Bloom, a literary site that features authors whose first books were published when they were 40 or older. 1. In our current moment, a chorus of “nasty women” has flooded social media with grievances. Unfortu

      5 min read

    • Article

      Grandma Ruth’s UP Truck Stop

      May 10, 2021

      Rachel’s last semester at the University of Michigan would have been easy if not for the news that reached her six weeks before her final exams. It wasn’t a phone call—the phone lines were still down from the most recent blizzard to hit Paradise, she

      28 min read

    • Article

      A double LIFE

      Sep 13, 2022

      A double LIFE
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Only Rule

      Jul 13, 2020

      There is only one rule in polite English society, but it is iron clad. Of course, polite English society is a fiction. For one thing, its members are rarely polite. Politeness is for the middle classes rather than those who live off ancestral acres o

      5 min read

    • Article

      All Of Us Here

      Jun 4, 2020

      All Of Us Here
      6 min read

    • Article

      Winter Sun

      Feb 6, 2020

      Winter Sun
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cain’s Feast

      Sep 15, 2022

      Cain’s Feast
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for How to Capture a Countess

    4/5

    20 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      metimes you just want a book where the ending is never in doubt. You need sweet, frothy, banter-filled plot and dialogue headed exactly where you expect. When I find myself looking for something like this, one of the places I turn is to Regency-set historical romances, the ones without a kidnapping or spies and lurking danger. And Karen Hawkins has provided just such a novel in this latest of the The Duchess Diaries series, How to Capture a Countess.When Rose Balfour was just sixteen, she managed to get Lord Alton Sinclair alone in a garden. He kissed her, she panicked, and pushed him into a fountain before fleeing. This incident, one that Lord Sin is certain was calculated and intentional, leaves Lord Sin a laughingstock and he vows revenge. But he loses track of the enticing Rose who has been whisked away to forestall the rumors. Six years later, though, still smarting from the mockery and as determined as ever to make Rose pay, he finds her again and discovers to his delight that his aunt is her godmother. When the Duchess of Roxburghe decides to throw a house party, she has ulterior motives that are more than suited by her rapscallion nephew's request that she invite her goddaughter to the party.Alternately narrated through pages from the Duchess of Roxburghe's diary and an omniscient third person narrator, the motivations and machinations behind so many of the characters' actions are neatly revealed to the reader while remaining cyphers to the other characters. Rose never intended to humiliate Sin. She was simply young and ultimately scared herself with the intensity of her feelings when he kissed her. Sin mistook Rose not for an innocent young girl but an experienced tease and reacted accordingly. Now at Her Grace's house party, they have the opportunity to redress the past even as their awareness of each other grows and blossoms into something far beyond what a mere kiss might spawn.The tension and banter between Rose and Sin is balanced and pleasing, especially in light of the Duchess' sly behind the scenes manuevering to protect both of them and yet to enable them to recognize their true feelings as they come together to scotch another scandal. Their constant contests and one-upsmanship has an ultimate prize and it's appealing to watch as they come to realize the end prize is the same regardless of who wins each encounter. The cock-ups and misadventures that take place in the course of the house party are good entertainment and go a long way towards establishing Rose and Sin's characters. It is a little incongruous that a man so esteemed by society, wealthy and good looking would in fact harbor such a long-standing grudge over an incident that happened so long ago especially since any resulting gossip would hurt Rose far more than it would hurt Sin given the mores of the time. But the book was fun and delivered exactly what it promised, some steamy sexual tension without recourse to forced danger or improbable plotting, well developed characters whose actions fit their time period, and a charming happily ever after.
    • 3/5
      not to bad. sin is kind of a jerk, but not as bad as some. he sets out to seduce her because as a fresh out debutante she accidentally pushes him into a fountain. which makes him a laughingstock, but ruins her. which he neither notices nor cares. of course. he sets off on a swath of rakish behavior, until his grandmother decides she's had enough and conspires to get the two together to end his behavior. he decides to seduce rose as payment for humiliating him, while she, still a virgin albeit a ruined one, tries to resist.
    • 1/5
      The narrator was absolutely HORRIBLE! I didn’t and couldn’t even get thru chapter 1. She has no range in voices. Her man voices was even worse! The book sounds great with a good story line. I do hope and wish they will have a different narrator for this book, until then I will never ever listen to anything this narrator does. So sad & truly bummed.
    • 4/5
      Sin and Rose... what a competitive couple. I think they worked well together and I enjoyed the flames between them. I had a couple laughs which is always a great thing. Looking forward to the next in the series.
    • 5/5
      When Rose was seventeen, she was very innocent and impulsive, and kissed Lord Sinclair, but overwhelmed by the sensations, ended up pushing him into a fountain and fleeing the scene and hiding from everyone inculding him, and leaving him to face the consequences, and Lord Sinclair has been wanting revengefor six years, and has found her again and is determined to get back at her, only he never thought he would fall in love with her. Rose, regretting her foolish act six years ago, has lived in the countryside taking care of her father and sisters, but when she is invited to a house party by her godmother (also Lord Sinclair's Aunt), she knows she has no choice but to except, especially for her sister's sake. However when she bumps into Lord Sinclair, she is shocked to see him again, but she starts to feel alive whenever he is near, and even though they are in one wager after another, she starts to fall in love with him again, but doesn't know if she can truly trust in their love and in Lord Sinclair......How To Capture A Countess is the first of a new series "The Duchess Diaries" by Karen Hawkins. Karen Hawkins has been one of my favorite authors, and I just loved the energy of this new book, it definitely had Hawkins spark and flair, and the story had the same feeling of fun and humor that I have always seen in the past. Lord Sinclair, just cracked me up especially in the beginning, especially his attitude toward life, and women, and I loved the playful interaction between Lord Sin and Rose. I also loved the spirit of Rose Balfour, at first she seems timid and reserved, but as the book progresses she comes out of her shell into a playful and full of life heroine, that you just want to cheer her on......a beautifully written romance filled with passion, zest and humor that will definitely enthrall you for more!!! A Must Read!!!