Too Tempting to Resist

Too Tempting to Resist by Cara Elliot L

Lady Eliza Brentford has endured one horrible marriage to save her family from complete financial ruin and refuses to do so again just because her younger brother has squandered the family fortune in gambling hells and brothels. She searches for him at a notorious house of ill repute where she encounters the Marquess of Hadden, Gryffin Dwight, a notorious hell raiser. The two share a moment over a discussion about a painting and discover they both have a love for botany and a certain spark ignites. But Hadden hides his true passion from the world; he is currently writing a book about gardens and plants and so when Eliza's brother invites him to a house party he jumps at the chance to explore the famous gardens at the estate. Eliza is not happy that her brother has decided to host a party of fellow drunkards and hell raisers and stays out of the way as much as possible, locked up in the gardener's cottage where she engages in her secret pursuit as an illustrator for books about flowers. But a chance encounter in the garden with the man who had so intrigued her at the brothel has her wondering if there is something more exciting than flowers and paints in store for her.

When curiosity gets the best of her she finds herself chained to Hadden's bed and she decides it's about time she took something for herself and she give into the passion she has been hiding for so long. Hadden knows he wants more of the beautiful young widow but for Eliza, Hadden stands in the way of her long held dream to become financially independent and move to a cottage on the coast where she no longer has to worry about her brother. Luckily a new commission has come in and she will finally have enough to make her dreams come true, but what she doesn't know is that it is for Hadden's book and when he discovers that she has been keeping this a secret from him he is furious, and even more so when he finds that one of her paintings is being auctioned off as a forgery for a famous painters. But Eliza is in a bind of her own as her brother's friend has been using this possible forged painting to blackmail her into marrying him and she has no one to turn to but Hadden. But Hadden is not about to let anyone hurt the woman he loves, the woman who has shown him what a relationship can be and nothing will stand in the way of their happiness.

Lady Eliza is super fun and exciting from the very beginning and it was impossible not to like her because she was smart and independent in a way that seemed very real and possible. She cared about people, she wasn't scared of her feelings, she enjoyed her life and was comfortable with her sexuality, and she was willing to admit mistakes and forgive herself and others. Hadden was exciting and fun and really not all that different from romance novel heroes as he's the bad guy with something he has to hide from society- in this case his love of plants. I felt like Hadden and Eliza worked really well together and their conversations were enjoyable and full of genuine back-and-forth that clearly showed that they were equals with something real to hold their relationship together. Their was amazing sexual tension between the two of them throughout the book that remains sizzling. There is a lot of sex, not too much, and all of it is super sexy and very well written and pretty imaginative for the period. I admit to being completely uninterested in plants and flowers in the way that botanists are, and I found it a little odd that they both happened to be enamored of the same obscure things and I was occasionally bored when there would be little spiels about plants and the language of flowers.

I did like that they both had something they were passionate about and they had dreams and aspirations, which might make them a little too modern but I still liked it. Eliza's brother was quite an ass and I liked that she did not make so many excuses for him and could recognize that he was not good people. The blackmail scheme came out of the blue towards the end and I really felt like it was awkwardly thrown in there. It also frustrated me that someone who had come across as so intelligent did not go straight to Hadden and instead tried to solve it herself. Independence has it's place, but I would have liked for her to recognize she needed help. And Hadden also came across a little stupid for jumping to the wrong conclusion randomly despite all that he knew about Eliza's character. I think because of the chemistry I enjoyed the book, even though the book took me longer than expected, and I found it tough to put down despite the length and tiny writing. The book flowed well with the great writing and diction, but I found this to be about average.

Rating: A fairly enjoyable book with two great characters with great chemistry but an awkward side plot and some holes that created a dragged out feeling.

Passion Wears Pearls

Passion Wears Pearls by Renee Bernard

Eleanor Beckett was trained to be a lady but when her father's patents are stolen and her parents die with nothing, she is thrown out on the streets to make her way. After her employer tries to find her a protector, Eleanor has nothing until artist Josiah Hastings storms in and saves her. Josiah is estranged from his family because of his not-so-respectable profession and is part of The Jaded, a group of men who spent time in an Indian prison together before escaping with a fortune in jewels. Josiah knows that it is only a matter of time before he goes completely blind and he has been desperately fighting the onset of blindness and trying to hide his deficiency from his friends. When he sees Eleanor his vision becomes crystal clear and he knows he has to paint her no matter the cost. Eleanor does not want any scandal attached to her name and definitely does not want to be thought of as a kept woman, but with no other option, agrees to become Josiah's model. The two work out a very generous contract that gives Eleanor quite a bit of money, even if she decides to opt out of being painted.

Eleanor and Josiah spend a great deal of time together as he paints her picture with both of them determined to ignore the passion they feel for each other. But as Eleanor comes to see how noble Josiah is and begins to suspect the secret he is trying to hide from everyone, she cannot help but fall in love with him. Eleanor is everything that Josiah has always known he can't have and when she admits her own feelings and her desire for him there is nothing that can stop him from having her. However, he knows that with his eyesight going he is no match for the beautiful and accomplished young woman and he has no intention of tying her to him. But Josiah and his fellow Jaded members are trying to capture the villain who is after them and is causing problems for all of them and when Eleanor finds out she fears for his safety. She feels she has no choice but to fight for the man she loves, even if his stubborn pride stands in their way, and when her life is endangered Josiah knows that he too will do anything for her.

I have read all of the other books in The Jaded series, but I will admit that I promptly forgot them upon finishing as none of them really had anything that stuck to me. This book followed in that pattern and I imagine that in a week I will remember almost nothing about it because there was simply no oomph or spark to really hold me. Eleanor and Josiah were both interesting enough and while I recognize that it's difficult to write a character that's different and unique when there are so many other books, I felt like Bernard was trying to make them unique and in doing so made them poorly ordinary. Josiah's blindness would have been intriguing except his stunning visual clarity when viewing Eleanor made it just ridiculous, completely unrealistic, and plain annoying. I am not an art connoisseur by any means and was completely uninterested in any of the talks of painting and mixing colors and rhapsodizing descriptions of Josiah's talents.

Eleanor was annoying in her righteous indignation at everything that didn't adhere to her very strict moral standards and it gets very tiresome. She goes on and on about holding onto her virtue and that makes it even worse when she does give in to her desire for him because it seems so out of character and smacked of hypocrisy. They certainly spent a good deal of time together, but it was entirely in his studio which presented a very insular space for them to be together and did not show me how they would work together in the real world. The sex between the was pretty hot and frequent enough but was crammed into a very small portion of the book. I felt like once they had given into their mutual passion the "problems" between them took on a superfluous air and the book seriously dragged. I found The Jaded plot to be haphazardly thrown into the mix and it did not fit in at all with the rest of the story and since it was really such a short little bit I didn't really get into it.

Rating: A problematic book with annoying problems and a subplot that I found myself completely uninterested in and rather boring characters.

The Seduction of His Wife

The Seduction of His Wife by Tiffany Clare 922

Emma, Countess of Asbury, is forced to visit a high class brothel because the the Earl of Waverly is blackmailing her by threatening to expose her career as a painter of the nude female form. Waverly is in possession of a self-portrait that could ruin Emma's standing in society, but she never expected to run into her husband at the brothel. Richard and Emma had married young, at eighteen and fifteen respectively, and he had left the day after to start his own career and make his own fortune by trading in opium. It has been over ten years since they have seen each other and a lot has changed for both of them and while Richard finds the changes in Emma intriguing and makes him want to start a real life with her, Emma is not sure if she wants to give Richard another chance or if there is room in her life for him. There is someone after Richard as he and his partner, Dante, attempt to sell their opium business and so he decides to move Emma and her two sisters, the widowed Grace and the youngest Abby, to their country estate where he hopes to get closer to Emma and keep everyone safe.

Richard finds himself wondering his wife took lovers while they were separated and he especially dislikes her friendship with the Marquess of Vane, a notorious ladies man who spends too much time around his wife. He knows that if he can convince her to just give him a chance that he can make their relationship work, but there is still so much about her that he does not know. Emma  is still worried over Richard's reaction to her work and that he will become bored and leave her again, breaking her heart permanently and leaving her unable to pick herself up after his abandonment. Her sisters recognize that she is still repressed and dare her to indulge in some semi-scandalous activities that her husband always catchers her in and it brings them closer together, but they continue to hold something back from each other. When he discovers her paintings he is fearful of what will happen when her identity is discovered, but it is his own enemies that prove the real threat as his old business partner returns to wreak havoc and Richard must prove to Emma that he is there to stay and that their love will last.

Emma is a painter and I tend to have a difficult time relating to characters who are very into something that I honestly really do not like so I was immediately disinclined to like her. Her refusal to just admit the truth to her husband was really irritating to me because I felt it was made clear early on that Richard was determined to be her husband and he would be willing to help her out of difficult situations, even though his love was not present. I felt like this major difficulty could have been solved early on and a big obstacle to their relationship would have disappeared and I just don't like big problems, especially when they're big ridiculous problems. She was a boring character because she had nothing going for her except the paintings and my favorite part of her was the letters she apparently wrote to Richard after he left because they revealed real emotion and I admit I loved the scene where he discovered them. Richard was  a typical romance hero; gorgeous, sexually experienced, insanely possessive and jealous when it came to his woman, but I did like how when he decided to woo his wife he devoted himself entirely to her.

I had high hopes for their relationship because of their situation, thinking there would be lots of emotions and angst, but I did not really feel like they explored their issues. About 1/3 of the way through Richard and Emma had sex and from then on out the book bordered on erotica because they were going at it constantly. There was nothing particularly shocking about it, a lot of dirty talk and lots of hard pounding, but even I started to think there was just too much of it and that I wanted to see that the two of them had something in common other than a need for a good fuck. The daring adventures her sisters sent her on came across as rather pathetic to me and I know I was supposed to feel like her awakening coincided with the reappearance of her husband and see that this meant that he was the perfect counterpoint to her, but I did not see it. There was a decent side plot involving her sister Grace and Dante the business partner that was also very heavy on the sex and not so much on anything else. I had no interest in the blackmail plot, the weird thing with his enemy and especially none on her paintings.

Rating: Two pretty boring characters who had lots of sex and were surrounded by interests and problems that did not interest me.

Portrait of a Lover

Portrait of a Lover by Julianne MacLean 1124

When Annabelle Lawson meets Mr. John Edwards on a train to Scotland she immediately senses a connection and decides to take the biggest risk of her life. For an entire summer she and Mr. Edwards meet secretly for fishing, paintings, and cuddles under the sky. She is heartbroken when she discovers that John is really Magnus Wallis, her adoptive brother's cousin and worst enemy. Magnus is in love with Annabelle but because he had been cast out of by the Whitby's he does not have much money and does not move in society. He thinks he is not good enough for her so he claims that he was merely using her and runs off to America. For thirteen years they both try to forget each other until Magnus comes back to England and wants to show one of Annabelle's paintings at an art gallery he recently acquired. She is wary of the meeting, but Magnus is not as he is determined to prove to Annabelle that he is good enough and that he is finally worthy of her trust and convince her to marry him.

It is not long before the two are back in their old rhythm of discussions and heated conversations with sexual overtones. He knows that her art is something special and his confidence in her abilities inspires her and awes her. But her brother, the Earl of Whitby, is in the back ground if not in person, marring their happiness with the knowledge that her brother will never accept a match between them. She takes a risk by escaping with him for a weekend and she knows that he is all she ever wanted in her life. There is so much bad blood between their families as she and Whitby have been told that his father was a murderous madman and that Marcus himself killed Whitby's older brother, while Marcus is resentful that the family kicked his father out for not being as strong as the old Earl expected. Marcus is a changed man and he no longer feels the need to be part of the ton, so when Annabelle offers to bring him into her world, he worries that she does not know him at all. Both must risk their pride and take a giant leap of faith for them to end up together.

These two were featured in Love According to Lily where Magnus was portrayed as a downright scoundrel and I was worried that MacLean would not really be able to resurrect him. However, MacLean does a superb job as she quickly puts to rest any fears that Magnus really was heartless. It was so clear that he loved her and that it was only his insecurities that kept him from staying with Annabelle. His situation was made even better because he eventually came into his own and became confident in himself that Annabelle's station and his lack of station, no longer mattered. He desperately wanted Annabelle to trust him and sometimes it became a little unbelievable that he expected her to trust him again after only a week or so of being reacquainted. I understood that his explanation to her was thorough, but it really made me dislike his character a little. I did admire that he was, for the most part, a self made man and it was a nice change of pace from the lords that populate most romance novels. I also admired his change of heart about being accepted by his family and how he was confident enough not to need their acceptance.

Annabelle was not quite as well rounded as her main plot line in this story was her fears about trusting Marcus again and she seemed to be searching for a reason not to trust him. At the same time this was a tad annoying, it also seemed very wise on her part as it showed she learned from her mistakes. I admired her loyalty to her family and how she did not want to just throw them over for the man she loved; she went digging and coercing in an attempt to get the two men she loved to find some common ground. Although I really don't consider myself much of an art aficionado, I liked that she had her own talent and that it didn't take over the book with talk of paintings. There was an undercurrent of sexual tension throughout the book and I really liked how it simmered just below the surface; it created some quite nice anticipation to the story. There was one extended sex scene that was quite sexy and hot and incredibly romantic. I also really liked that she featured characters from her previous novel in important, yet not overwhelming. It was clear that they were living happily ever after but it was in the back ground, and I did not feel like it was being shoved in my face.

Rating: I liked the emotions that really carried this book through and I admired both of the main characters, although the book could have used some more excitement.