The Conquest of Lady Cassandra

The Conquest of Lady Cassandra by Madeline Hunter

When Lady Cassandra Verhan was caught alone with a man, society expected her to marry him, but she shocked the ton when she refused and has since been living a life of scandal and notoriety. Operating on the fringes of society she lives with her Aunt Sophia, an absentminded lady with a scandalous past of her own, but manages to maintain friendships with some of the most well connected ladies of the ton. Yates Ellison, Viscount Ambury, was friends with the man who ruined Cassandra and who was recently killed in a due, presumably over Cassandra, so he has no kind feelings towards her. However, he does find that he is very attracted to her and is interested in discovering more about a necklace he recently purchased from her at an auction. Ambury is looking into the necklace at the behest of his dying father who believes that it was stolen, but Ambury does not want Sophia to know the truth so he asks her to look into the origins of the necklace before he pays for. Cassandra is desperate for the money as her brother, Gerald, is threatening to have Aunt Sophia placed in a home and Cassandra is determined to find a safe haven for herself and her aunt.

The investigation finds Cassandra and Ambury spending more time together than usual and neither can deny the sexual tension between them, and being more progressive adults than most of their peers, they give into their mutual desire. Ambury worries he is betraying his former friend, believing that she is responsible for his friend's ruined reputation and subsequent death during a duel, and even Cassandra because he has an ulterior motive. Cassandra is concerned about letting somebody close to her after the tumultuous life she has had but recognizes that she can use all the help she can find to get her aunt to safety. And she is beginning to wonder if Ambury is right about the origin of Aunt Sophia's necklace, and the rest of the jewelry in her possession. To keep Cassandra and her aunt safe, Ambury marries Cassandra, and together they must work to save Aunt Sophia and discover the secrets behind her jewels and in the process discover a whole lot of love.

There was a lot of back story in this novel that it was important to know and there were times that I wondered if I had accidentally skipped one of Hunter's stories. It was a stand alone for sure, but I definitely got the feeling that I would have been a little less loss if I had read this missing piece. Plus the background of the characters and how they had known each other was a little confusing and seemed like an attempt to cause some drama between the characters and there was already enough of that with the necklace plot. Cassandra was interesting, if not entirely relatable because the reader didn't really learn the entire truth of her situation until near the end and while I understand the author wanted the reader to be drawn in it just annoyed me. She was strong and independent and I very much admired her for that and her vulnerability when it came to her past made her more enjoyable and realistic. Ambury was cloaked in secrets and incredibly judgmental of Cassandra and refused to see the truth of what had happened with her and his friend until the very end which made him more than a little unlikable.

Ambury and Cassandra had a deep attraction for each other, we are told, but I really did not feel the sexual tension which surprised me as Hunter is usually adept at writing this. I did not like that they had already known each other and had an unpleasant past between them because it really was not resolved to my satisfaction. They didn't get to know each other again and forgive, it was more like they moved on without any true resolution of the past. There was enough sex in the book but I wasn't blown away by it and I would have liked more of a build up of their relationship. The plot involving the necklace was very interested and I found myself drawn in to what was going to happen to Aunt Sophia and how they would thwart Gerald. Some truly astounding discoveries were made surrounding this and I was completely blown away and surprised so that is always a nice way to end a story. The writing style flowed nicely and the book was an easy read.

Rating: A book that had potential but the side plots quickly took over the book and my interest since the relationship did not draw me in.

Dangerous in Diamonds

Dangerous in Diamonds by Madeline Hunter 503

The Duke of Castleford is notorious for his whoring, his drinking, and his dissolute ways, which is why he is shocked when his pious cousin, the Duke of Becksbridge, leaves him several properties around England to manage. Shocked by this turn of events he decides to take a tour of his latest acquisition, a delightful plot of land the current tenant has named "The Rarest Blooms." Castleford has his own connections to The Rarest Blooms as his closest friends have all married women who spent time there as the place is a haven for women who need to get away from something or someone. He is charmed by the beautiful and proper Daphne Joyes, the widow who runs a flower business on the property and he decides that he will seduce her and enlists the help of his friends in figuring out how to do so. Daphne has enjoyed her life of privacy in the country where no questions are asked and she uses her widowhood as a shield. Castleford represents everything she dislikes; a dissolute rake with no cares except for himself and no sense of responsibility and she is determined that his blatant attempts at seduction will come to naught even while she can't help but admit that he does hold a certain attraction.

He makes it clear that he intends to seduce her and after a few stolen kisses, Daphne must admit that she is finding staying away from the duke very hard. He uses his ownership of the land she uses as an excuse to get her to come to London, where she stays in their mutual friends' house. He sends a team of men onto the land to look into anything that might be of value, such as minerals or gold and word quickly spreads around town that Castleford may be coming into even more money. Daphne is not happy with this turn of events and fears that he will take the land she has lived on for years, but she is surprised to learn that they have a mutual dislike of the Latham, the newly appointed Duke of Becksbridge. Meanwhile there is an uprising going on up North that Latham is involved in and stirring up trouble that could mean many deaths and Daphne and Castleford can work together to try to put a stop to his machinations. There is a lot to sort out from both their pasts, and a lot of fears to overcome, but together they make an excellent pair.

I have really enjoyed Hunter's previous books in the Rarest Blooms series because of the strong characters and well done plots and throughout all of them I have read about the Duke of Castleford and found myself on pins and needles waiting for when he would finally find the woman for him. He has certainly been portrayed as irredeemable and I knew it was going to take a lot of work for him to become a real romance novel hero. His change was slow and happened so slowly that it was rather difficult to see and while I found this to be more realistic I kind of wanted a honest-to-goodness "aha" moment where he realized he needed to change his ways. I did appreciate that he was changing for her in such drastic ways, even if at first it was only to sleep with her and it took awhile for love to enter the picture. He was a good guy in the book and he ended up doing the right, or correct, thing in the end, but I wish he had been more honest with everyone and straightforward. Daphne was a little bland after the badness of Castleford and I wanted her to be equally human and make mistakes and not always be so "perfect."

Their relationship was awkward to me because he just loved to get her ire up and see her color rise- weird to me. I was at least hoping that the sex between them would be good, especially considering Castleford's past, but it was rather lukewarm and there was nowhere near as much as I had been expecting. This book began to drag about halfway through when the focus moved away from him trying to seduce her. That was really held the book together and unfortunately Hunter, had made that the entire book and once it was over, the book really lost my interest for the most part. The plot about the workers in the North also did not hold my interest, which was surprising as I normally like historical tidbits thrown in and I'm almost always up for a little class "warfare." This one really did not do this for me and it slowed down the pace of the book and really lacked any genuine link to the relationship between Castleford and Daphne.

Rating: A book with tremendous potential that did not live up to my expectations regarding the hero and the relationship and dragged by the middle of the book.

Sinful in Satin

Sinful in Satin by Madeline Hunter 1007

Miss Celia Pennifold is called to London for her mother's funeral and to manage the debts her mother left upon her death. Her mother had once been the most celebrated courtesan in London and everyone had expected Celia to follow in her footsteps but instead she had run away and joined other females at The Rarest Blooms out in the country. She is not surprised that most of her mother's holdings will go straight to settling debts but she is left a small house. Said house comes with a tenant: Mr. Jonathan Albrighton, who had been a friend to her when she lived with her mother. She hopes to use the house she is left to become partner in her friend's flower business and make a decent life for herself without having to become like her mother. But then a man from her past shows up with a new debt and the hope that Celia will agree to become his mistress.

Celia had once fancied herself in love with Anthony Dearang but he had dashed her hopes when he refused to marry her and wanted to set her up as his mistress so she had run away from London. She now knows that what she felt for Anthony is not love as she is beginning to feel real emotion for Jonathan. At first annoyed by his presence she has come to enjoy their time together, especially when they are doing something naughty. He supports her decision to help run a business and her decision to turn away from the life her mother had planned for her. But Celia is very aware of her social status and how she should not hope from marriage from anyone. As the bastard of a high-ranking peer who never acknowledged him, Jonathan too knows about social status but unlike Celia it does not matter to him. What does matter is making the woman he loves happy and making her see that she loves him too.

This book is part of a series by Madeline Hunter and the series had had its ups and downs and this book falls fairly squarely in the middle. Celia was great as the courtesan's daughter who was trying to avoid that life even as everyone around her pretty much assumed that she would give in to temptation. However, what made her situation so realistic, was that she had not given up that life because of some great moral compass and she continued to use and respect some of the things that her mother had taught her when she was going to become a courtesan. So basically she was warring between her practical self which was telling her to just give in and have a comforting life and forging her own path and taking some great risks and hoping that she could find a man who loved her despite, or because of, her rather unusual past. This made it even more exciting when she did decide on love and a life with Jonathan.

Jonathan was also great as the bastard who was trying to get to know his real family while at the same time pretending he didn't really care about being accepted. This made him a great foil for Celia who was going through some of the same issues herself and enabled him to help her through it. The language throughout the book was rather on the flowery side for my taste but it was especially annoying during the sex scenes which were plentiful and sometimes bordered on hot, but just not really exciting. There were plenty of allusions to the things she had learned with her mother but we really did not get to read too much about these things. Their was a confusing bit about Jonathan trying to dig up information about a spy network, but it was rather convoluted and I did not really care for it. He was of course friends with the heroes from the other books and she was friends with the heroines so there were lots of meetings betw

een them and talks and general being so great together.

Rating: This was a good, fun to read book, with two wonderful characters but too flowery and weird maybe spying and betrayal bits that I didn't really get the point of.

Provocative in Pearls

Provocative in Hunter by Madeline Hunter 430

For two years Grayson, Earl of Hawkeswell, has been struggling to obtain the monies he was promised when he wed young Verity Thompson. Unfortunately right after the ceremony she absconded away and drowned in the Thames, but since her body was never found, the entire validity of the marriage is up in the air. Hawkeswell needs those funds to help those on his lands who depend on him. During an afternoon trip to the country with his friend he discovers that Verity is far from dead and has in fact been posing as young Elizabeth for the last two years. He is furious but Verity hopes that she can convince him that the best possible way to remedy the situation is to obtain an annulment and she will grant him the funds he needs. She had been coerced into the marriage by her cousin, who threatened to hurt some family friends of hers, and she did want to enter into a man she barely new so she ran away. Hawkeswell does not want to listen to Verity's arguments or proposals, but he agrees that in exchange for three kisses a day he will leave her alone.

Verity does not expect these kisses to amount to much, so she is quite surprised when she finds herself very much liking them. Hawkeswell wants his marriage to work out because he desperately needs the money, but even after he is offered the money, without the bride, he finds that he is not quite willing to give Verity up. He is not at all pleased that Verity has an obsession with finding Michael Bowman, the young man everyone had assumed she would eventually marry. Michael was handsome and he grew up in the world of the iron mines, so he was the perfect man for Verity. Hawkeswell does not like feeling as though his wife wants someone else, butt he more he sees her dedication to the people, sees the cruel way her cousin and his wife treated her while she lived with them, and sees how innocently perfect she is in med, the more he comes to realize that there may be something more important than his own happiness and the money he can gain. Only after he proves to her that she means more to him than anything do he and Verity come together with the knowledge that there was nothing left to stop them from falling in love.

I am torn between admiring Lizzie for taking matters into her own hands and running away from a situation she had absolutely not control of and disliking her for running away and not standing up for herself. I guess the fact that there really was nothing she could do because of her age and her gender, I am more sympathetic to her plight. So go her for running away. However, her ideas on how to make things right are obviously ridiculous from the get go and I don't quite understand how she could be so sheltered and naive after everything she went through. Hawkeswell was interesting as well, although I was still trying to figure out why his temper was so renowned and if there really was a danger of it manifesting itself around Lizzie. Oddly enough I found myself far more sympathetic to his plight than I was for Lizzie. I liked that I could really get a feel for the way these two fell in love with each other- I imagine I was that Hawkeswell loved Lizzie's dedication to her friends and her father's legacy as well as her innocence, while Hawkeswell really proved his love for her at the end in such an amazing way that Lizzie had to fall in love with her. I guess I'm just a sucker for sacrifices that prove love!

The writing style in this was different than I am used to with Hunter's novels, especially the sex scenes that were just very... perhaps the right word is flowery. They were quite plentiful, definitely not graphic, and really just kind of hinted in weird ways at what was going on. I wasn't really a fan. In addition this whole hoopla about the family friend/ childhood sweetheart should have been explained in much more detail from the beginning as I was halfway done before I really figured out why Michael was important to her and why we should care about what had happened. Luckily once I understand what had happened, kind of, I was definitely intrigued and wanted to figure out why so many young men in iron towns were disappearing. Unfortunately, this plot should have been much more complex than it was as there were conspiracies, workers troubles, and circumventing of the law, that I would have liked some more explanation of it at the end.

Rating: I can objectively look at this book and find redeeming qualities, but I just did not like it. My favorite part was the very end when Hawkeswell made that big sacrifice because of how much he loved Verity.

Ravishing in Red

Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter

Audrianna Kemsleigh decides to meet "Domino" at an inn outside London in the hopes that this mysterious man can clear her father's name. Lord Sebastian Summerhays has been leading the investigation into bad gunpowder that had been sent to the front and led to the slaughter of English soldiers. His brother, the Marquess of Wittonbury, had been left unable to walk because of this faulty gunpowder. Audrianna's father, Horatio, had been the last stop of the gunpowder on the way to the front so suspicion had fallen on him and he had eventually committed suicide. Sebastian and Audrianna end up meeting at the inn and when the real Domino finds them he is shocked into shooting Sebastian. Scandal breaks out and while Audrianna hopes to ride it out by hiding at her cousin at her estate, The Rarest Blooms. But the scandal is not blowing over and it is threatening Sebastian's standing in Parliament and any future hope that Audrianna's family had of weathering it through the gunpowder scandal. So Sebastian and Audrianna arrange for a marriage of convenience.

The two of them know their marriage will not be entirely accepted by society or by their families but Sebastian's money helps to appease Audrianna's family while the scandal at the inn loses steam with the marriage. Sebastian knows that continuing to investigate the gunpowder could potentially make his entire married life a disaster but he feels he has an obligation to his brother. Meanwhile, although Audrianna knows her father is innocent, she is able to understand why Sebastian is so dedicated to what he is doing. As the two of them realize that there is more to this marriage than convenience and a common goal to find out the truth behind the gunpowder, more information comes to light that the conspiracy might stretch all the way to some very high level government officials. Unfortunately the plot may go all the way to someone that both Audrianna and Sebastian hold very dear and both have to decide if the possibilities that exist in their marriage are worth risking to satisfy their desire for justice and revenge.

I really liked the very heavy writing style that Madeline Hunter uses. She goes into tremendous depth about what the characters are thinking and feeling and what is happening around them. I really enjoyed both character's immensely and this was in large part because of the great writing I mentioned earlier that really allows the reader to feel like they know both Audrianna and Sebastian. Both of these characters manage to be both self assured and very confident in their goals, yet they both know that there is so much in life they are missing. The scene where they discuss fidelity in marriage is poignant and funny all at once. And I loved the scene where Audrianna sought out Sebastian when she had said something to upset him, not necessarily to apologize but to discuss what could be done. So many great scenes between them that just showed how great they were together. There was plenty of sex in the story and although I felt it could have been fleshed out it was certainly satisfying and worked very well with the romantic development throughout the story.

There was also the seamlessly integrated and very important gunpowder plot. This was obviously an integral part of the story as it brought them together and served as a basis for many of their interactions and for some of the more emotional parts of the book. It was a much better reason for concern about a marriage's success than some of the other maneuvers that romance novel writers employ. And what made it even more enjoyable was that it remained a mystery the whole time what was really going on and I had both the romance and the discovery at the end to look forward to. It sometimes did seem like it got a little overwhelming sometimes and I would have appreciated some more scenes between Audrianna and Sebastian that didn't take place in the bedroom and didn't involve the gunpowder. There was also some greatness involving Sebastian's brother, Morgan, as he struggled with the possibility that his life might not have to be lived in a wheelchair and he fights against any changes occurring.

Rating: Very much enjoyed this book, especially the writing and the amazingly likable characters. I would have liked a little less plot taking over though.

The Sins of Lord Easterbrook

The Sins of Lord Easterbrook by Madeline Hunter

The Sins of Lord Easterbrook is the story of Christian, Marquess of Easterbrook, and Leona Montgomery who has spent most of her life in China helping first her father, and now her brother, run the family trading business there. The two met seven years before our story opens, and we're giving an adequate amount of flashback material without it being overly heavy, when Easterbrook had misled Leona as to his identity and then disappeared on the night her father's trading ship was burned. He took with him her father's diary which detailed his ideas on the vast conspiracy among English traders in China who smuggled opium. Leona comes to London to find backing for her brother's failing trading business and discover who exactly the opium smugglers, whom she holds responsible for her father's death, are.

Leona is accompanied by her maid, Isabella, who is the bastard daughter of an Englishman official and his Chinese concubine, and Tong Wei a meditation zen artist with amazing martial arts skills who is filled with Eastern wisdom. She is surprised to discover the her former love Edmund is in fact Lord Easterbrook and of course the obstacles in between are insurmountable. She needs to go back to China to help out her brother while he is hiding a dark secret which is revealed early on and is laughably awful. He can "feel" or "read" people's emotions beyond what the normal human can. This of course is his curse, or the "sin" of the title. (I am not kidding) Of course the opium trade is a big deal so the higher-ups in London society do not want her poking her nose around in it. Chaos ensues, attempts on her life are made, and the day is eventually saved (to an extent).

Confused? So was I. No- so AM I. I do not know how they figured out which person to target, I do not know how this person figured out they were going to target them. I do not really know Easterbrook's connection to the opium trade. I do not really know a lot of the elements involved in the opium plot and by the end I was too bored with it to really care. At least this plot was an integral part of the story, not what I call a side-plot to flesh out the book for it's required 370 pages, but perhaps it should not have been quite so much of the story. Leona and Easterbrook were rarely ever together in a context outside talking about what was going on in China and with opium to the point where I was thinking they'd make better partners (journalists, police, business) then spouses. The best part about the opium trade plot was the two page author's note in the back of the book that gave a brief, but interesting and well-informed, summary of the opium trade/ smuggling between China and England.

Easterbrook's weird talent for emotion reading was crazily overblown. I know that it was a problem for him knowing how his parents really felt about each other, but for this to be the cause of seriously- EVERYTHING that's wrong with his life? His (former) opium addiction? His fear of procreating (i.e. getting married) for fear of passing on this debilitating disease to his offspring? Get over yourself! And all the bizarre meditation, Eastern wisdom stuff, got annoying REALLY quickly. What did this book have going for it? I would have said incredibly hot sex, because it did, and it certainly had a lot of it, but then I realized two things. One was that he was always in control- literally. Every scene contained the words vulnerable and/or submissive and I just found it odd. The second was that both of them openly acknowledged that sex was used to make them forget all the problems in their relationship.

I'm giving it two hearts because it was chock full of information but all the nonsense just got in the way instead of making the book stronger.