A Seduction in Scarlet

A Seduction in Scarlet by Sara Bennett 424

Portia Ellerslie has spent the last several years of her life as England's favorite widow. Her husband was the hero of the nation and the people, and Queen Victoria, expect her to portray the "proper" behavior for the widow of such a man. She knows she can never remarry, never allow her control to slip, and basically never express any of the needs any woman has. She runs to Aphrodite's Club and enlists the help of the madame to find a man for just one night's pleasure to last her for the rest of her life. What she finds is Marcus Worthorne, the boy she had secretly been in love with years before when she was just the vicar's daughter and he never spared her a glance. It is not long before she realizes one night cannot be enough so she arranges what she believes will be just one more night. But Marcus has a plan and this time he hires and investigator to find out who this wonderfully intriguing woman he cannot get out of his mind, is. He decides to surprise her at an event in public in the hopes that she will be forced to confront her feelings for him.

But Portia cannot just throw away the expectations that have been placed on her by society and the Queen and she refuses to make anything public so Marcus arranges a trip for the two of them to the beach. Although things do not go quite as planned, it makes it clear to Marcus that these furtive meeting are not enough and he knows he wants quite a bit more from this woman. He finally proposes to Portia, but she is too scared to let go of what she has worked for for so long and Marcus decides that he can wait Portia out. Unfortunately, Portia's maid, is worried about how her scandalous behavior could end up hurting her behavior and Hettie runs to tell Portia's stepdaughter and her husband. When the two of them threaten to lock up Portia's mother in an asylum she is desperate to find a way to save her- even if it means turning to the man who could prove fatal to her reputation. But Arnold is a member of a secret organization to assassinate the queen and he will do anything to bring about Portia's destruction. Together Portia and Marcus must save the queen and relieve themselves of their worries.

Although I did completely respect Portia's feelings about going against the wishes of basically everyone in the nation, I felt as though she should have succumbed awhile earlier. Despite references being made to all these people depending on her, I never actually read details and sometimes it seemed like the person she was really trying to protect was herself. It went on and on even after Marcus had helped save her mother and I really couldn't help but feeling that, if she really wanted to protect everyone, she would have just married Marcus and avoided quite a bit of the mess. I loved reading about the change that Marcus undergoes as he starts at with not a care in the world and then he starts to want to impress her, followed by some brief jealousy, and then finally to the realization that he does want to make a life with her. And he does this so wonderfully as he tries to show that he can do this for her by finally taking on the responsibilities he has been neglecting for so long. He is so earnest as he tries to tell her all the things he can give her and the scene where she turns down his marriage proposal is just so heartbreaking.

Portia was also interesting in that she gathered the courage and went after what she wanted despite the threats to her reputation. Romance novels involving brothels are always so intriguing to me. Unfortunately the sex was not all that steamy and was jam backed in the first 150 or so pages, with the later offerings really being only alluded to before a new chapter begins. I also really liked that this book portrayed Victoria as a flawed, selfish, far too puritanical woman and not as some mythical God. She was well-liked by the people, but I was glad that she was not held up and revered by them as I am not a great fan. The plot to kill her was a bit of a waste, but I guess that having Arnold be an ass was not enough- he also needed to be into regicide. The book also had a great example of a family struggling with a member slowly giving way to Alzheimer's (before it was really known) and it was quite interesting. Lara was a very interesting character as she was hateful and awful, but her motivations were well explained and she was easy to understand in a rather odd way.

Rating: I liked the first two-thirds of the book the best as it really did just drag near the end as the author tried to get to 370 pages by adding in an assassination. However, Marcus was GREAT!

Highland Obsession

Highland Obsession by Dawn Halliday 422

The Earl of Camdonn, Cam, had engaged in a brief but very torrid affair with the daughter of his castle's steward before she was moved away. Although he never planned to marry her and regarded her purely as a dalliance, his feelings change considerably when Sorcha marries another man. Suddenly he knows that he needs her in his life and is determined to get her back. Sorcha is worried that her new husband will spurn her if he discovers her past, so she decides to cover it up in the hope that she can make a nice life with her new husband, Laird Alan MacDonalds. Alan and Cam have been best friends ever since their days at Oxford, but when Cam steals Sorcha away on his wedding night he feels horribly betrayed by both of the people he thought he could trust. He does not know if he can ever forgive Cam or his wife for not being pure and innocent on their wedding night. Sorcha knows she should have been honest with Alan from the beginning but she desperately wants to make it up to him and prove she can be the wife he needs.

Even when Alan has made his peace with Sorcha, it is not enough to assuage the betrayal of his honor and he is forced to duel with Cam. When something goes wrong on the field Cam is left with a deep gash on his side and both Alan and Sorcha are able to put away their recent problems with this man and remember the times when they cared for him. Seeing Alan and Sorcha together brings back all of the jealous feelings Alan had wanted to put behind him. One night when the three of them are a little bit tipsy he decides to live out a dark fantasy he can't seem to get out of his mind and he, Sorcha, and Alan engage in a very scorching, and very emotional, threesome. Afterwards Alan is convinced that Sorcha is in love with Cam so he decides to join his men as they go to join the Earl of Mar in the fight to bring the exiled James onto the thrown of Scotland. When she awakes Sorcha is heartbroken, and Cam makes the unselfish decision to help her find Alan and help them work out their differences. But will she be able to find Alan in the heat of battle and will she be able to convince him that it is only him that she wants?

Obviously this novel is not at all for the fainthearted or the easily offended as this is definitely an erotica romance novel that features a threesome and it is quite graphic. The book also features a VERY brief interaction between Alan and another woman, but even I was not disgusted by it (and normally cheating spouses do) so it was not that bad and made sense in the context of what was going on. But this book was far from being just about sex as their was a very intriguing plot going on that involved all three characters and their relationships to each other. Cam, Alan, and Sorcha all had a very personal, very involved relationship with the other characters (although I should say Cam and Alan are not bisexual...) and Halliday does a tremendous job of thoroughly immersing her readers in these relationships. And the very fact that Alan and Cam are such close friends really strengthens the books overall as so few romance novels feature such close male friends and the intricacies of their relationship were very well told here.

The book really is told equally from all three perspectives and I completely felt like I was in their heads and could understand their motives, even if I did not always agree with them. I absolutely loved how my allegiances changed throughout the course of the book- it really shows how great a character writer Halliday is. Sorcha and Alan are great together and the trials and tribulations they go through to finally get their happily ever after are quite heartbreakingly portrayed in this story. Sorcha is eager to please her new husband, and they emotions she and Alan are feeling for each other are so amazingly written. The sex in the novel is an extension and manifestation of their feelings for each other, even the menage, and were beautifully added in to the story. I also found myself liking the brief bits of history we got as we read about the uprising in Scotland to throw the Hanoverian off the thrown and reinstall the Stewarts.

Rating: Do not blow this book off for being an erotica because it is a very well written, character driven book about relationships, romances, and people who care for each other

Lessons from a Scarlet Lay

Lessons from a Scarlet Lady by Emma Wildes 420

This is actually two stories really in one although both of the stories are vastly interconnected as the two women are best friends and the two men involved are brothers. Brianna is already married to Colton Northfield, Duke of Rolthven, but she wants to ensure that he never strays from her so she enlists the help of Lady Rothburg. Rothburg is a notorious courtesan who published a manual that was so scandalous it was actually banned by Parliament. She uses some of the tricks that the Lady suggests in her book and it definitely does the trick as Colton begins to let down his renowned stuffiness. However she had not counted on Colton wondering exactly where his virginal young wife had come up with these ideas as he certainly had not shown her. When he discovers that Brianna is expecting he can't help but wonder if the child is his, but he is beginning to realize that it is not jealous that is eating him alive, it is the fear that he might lose her love. He needs to learn to trust and just accept that she loves him and does not want any other man but him.

Rebecca Marston is in her second season and she has received many marriage offers, but she has spurned all of her suitors because she is secretly in love with Robert Northfield, the youngest brother of the above mentioned Colton. Unfortunately he is a notorious rake who spends his life sleeping with all the married ladies and widows of the ton and he has never shown the slightest bit of interest in the very marriageable Rebecca. When the two of them are thrown together at a house party Brianna throws for Colton's birthday, Robert realizes he has definitely overlooked this beautiful and very musically talented young woman. But her father is dead set against the match as he has been misinformed about some very bad habits that Robert does not possess and he is still unsure if he really is ready to get married. With the help of Lady Rothburg, Rebecca wants to show Robert that she is the perfect woman for him and she can make him fall in love with her and keep him from straying from her forever.

I was worried that having two stories in the amount of space would really not be enough room to fully go through the development of the relationship and really be a romance. In a sense this was right as it really seemed as though Brianna and Colton's stories dealt with far more of the issues people who are really in a working relationship would deal with, such as worries about infidelity and losing a loved one, and the sex. On the other hand Rebecca and Robert moved more slowly and did seem to be the first half of a traditional romance novel. I almost feel like she could have taken their story and then gone on some more. I am also fairly certain that more time was spend on Brianna and Colton's story and I found that I enjoyed it much more than Rebecca and Robert's story. Partly because I love the idea of a woman seeking advice from a courtesan to seduce her own husband and the idea of an innocent pining after the biggest rake in the ton has been done to extremes in literally every novel. However, I did not have a difficulty time seeing why these two couples made such great couples as they interacted with their chosen significant other so well and I loved reading about the times they spent together.

The emotions in this story were very well written and the points of views were done very well as the reader got at least an adequate understanding of what was motivating each of the characters. And this book certainly ran the entire gamut of emotional turmoil to great happiness and it was very enjoyable to read about. As mentioned briefly above the sex rested very heavily on Brianna and Colton's story and what there was was great- as it should have been being inspired by a courtesan's writings! This whole book is based on a book written by a courtesan so I was really hoping we'd get some insight into what made this book so scandalous it had to be banned. Unfortunately the only sneak peaks given into the book were brief and really something that could have come out of an advice book for young ladies. References were made to it but I was especially frustrated when mention was made of something incredibly scandalous in Chapter 10 of the book, and yet I never figured out what it was!

Rating: Very enjoyable book that could have used a few more pages to flush out some of the more romantic elements of the relationships.

The Accidental Countess

The Accidental Countess by Michelle Willingham 418

Stephen Chesterfield, the Earl of Whitmore, wakes up to find his childhood sweetheart, whom he hasn't seen in 10 years, standing over him and claiming to be his wife. Unfortunately he has no recollection of actually marrying her, or of the previous three months. He is wary of her claims as he doesn't think he would have married, but looking at her he certainly knows that there would be one benefit to being married to Emily. Emily Barrow is furious at Stephen. Four months ago he had promised to look after her brother, who had enormous debts and terrible investment intuition, and her niece and nephew if she married him. In exchange he would finally get out from under his domineering father's thumb. But Emily also believed there were feelings between them and so when Stephen left her a week after their wedding she was devastated. She became even angrier with him when her brother died and she was told that Stephen had been spending time with his mistress. Neither is sure what they want to happen with this marriage, but Stephen is determined to get to the bottom of what happened to him, and her brother.

The more Stephen investigates the more confusing the whole debacle becomes. He believes it is his duty to protect Emily and her niece and nephew, whom she is responsible for now that her brother is dead. He thinks the best way to accomplish this is to lead that killers to believe that he does not care for them. This plays right into the hands of the ton, and Stephen's family, who already dislike Emily and believe he should seek an annulment. Unfortunately Emily is not too keen on this idea and it only plays into her insecurities, as she was not raised to be a lady because of her family's financial difficulties. She knows she should protect her heart from Stephen, but she cannot help but give into her attraction for him. When her brother's will resurfaces and names her great-uncle as legal guardian of the children, Stephen believes they should go along with it until legal action can be taken and Emily feels like he has betrayed her. Meanwhile the assassins are hot on their trail and have already made attempts on Stephen's life. Emily refuses to let Stephen risk his life on his own and insists on accompanying them: this places them both in danger but also forces both of them to confront their feelings for each other.

I like Emily and reading about how she was feeling and what she was going through was incredibly interesting. She has real thoughts and emotions that make sense in the situations she is put in. Her devotion to the children was completely well done as she was not the simpering and too nice guardian of some romance novels where the heroine is just far too sweet and childlike for my taste. She tries so valiantly to guard her heart and I absolutely loved how she wanted so desperately to give in to this man she had loved since she was a girl, but at the same time she was terrified he would crush her again. Stephen was a great character as well, especially how he admitted to himself so quickly that he needed Emily in his life and not just to make his father mad at him. I did find the necessity of making everyone believe he didn't need Emily to be a little cruel and it definitely made her a target for all the other members of the ton, without really accomplishing anything. The sex between them was plenty hot enough, but it didn't last very long and there wasn't enough of it.

A huge theme of this book is Stephen's amnesia and the author handled this in the most realistic manner possible. There was no waking up with a "who am I," on his lips, and I really appreciated her research into the topic. While not my favorite romance novel plot, at least it wasn't completely blown out into crazytown. Obviously a large part of this book revolved around attempting to find out what had happened during the three months that Stephen could not remember. It was quite convoluted with betrayal and assassins and lots of worrying. It was interesting and I did want to discover what had happened but I would have liked to have had more time where the characters weren't worrying about getting killed or talking about what had happened. Basically more romantic development. The secondary characters here were perfectly written, from the age appropriate behavior of both of the children, to the cold snubbing of the ton, to his heartily disapproving father who, despite his disapproval, obviously does want to do what's best for his heir.

Rating: A satisfying read with nothing particularly awful about it, but the most special part of it was that the author actually did research on amnesia beforehand.

The Highlander's Bride

The Highlander's Bride by Michele Sinclair 415

Laurel Cordell is running away from the crazy Douglas clan after they had kidnapped her while she was on the way to go live with her grandfather in Scotland. Although Laurel is English, her heart has always been in Scotland and after both her parents have died, she wastes no time leaving her cold hearted brother and returning there. She runs straight into a group of warriors from the McTiernay clan, including Conor, who is their big fierce giant of a leader. Immediately upon seeing Laurel all the men in the group are entranced by her angel-like appearance and want to claim her for their own. Unfortunately, everyone believes that Conor has already claimed her, even though he wastes no time in making sure everyone, including Laurel, knows that he will never marry. He had at one point wanted love in his life, but after being chased for his title by conniving women, he has sworn off matrimony forever. However, he is still drawn to this English beauty and vows that he will protect her. Laurel is also very attracted to this man, but believes that getting involved with someone will bring the Douglass Clan's wrath down on her loved ones.

When he leaves her alone in the castle to go on a journey she decides to get her revenge by taking over his castle and cleaning it up. Somehow while doing this she comes to deeply respect the man in charge and the devotion he garners from his underlings. When he returns he is furious that she disobeyed his wishes and wants to sternly scold her, but somehow all of their arguments end with the two of them kissing and desperately wanting each other. Conor realizes that he needs Laurel in his life and that without her he will turn into a bitter, lonely man, but Laurel is still wary of marrying a man who seeks to control everything she does. Together these two very strong willed character must learn to compromise for the sake of their relationship and for the good of the clan. Just when things look to be going well, problems come from an unexpected source, as Laurel's grandfather comes charging in to rescue her from the man he believes kidnapped his granddaughter. However, when the evil Douglass clan finally does decide to have their revenge on Laurel, it will take all of them to defeat them.

Note: My summary actually makes the book sound interesting- do not be fooled! Laurel is definitely not a very nuanced character: she is either super feisty and take charge as she is ordering people around and getting her hands dirty helping fix up the castle, or she is losing her temper at everything that Conor says. Basically she loses her temper quite a lot in this book and Conor is not any different. He is constantly angry that: someone may be looking at her, someone may think that he is going to marry her, she is doing something he has not specifically told her to do, she is looking at another man or talking about another man. his jealousy and worry over her know absolutely no bounds and it gets tired incredibly quickly. They spend almost every second together arguing over her doing something he deems unsafe and then they both end up blowing up at each other. And to make it worse both of them, and everyone else, regards this as a sign of how strong their relationship is. Wha? I feel like this is a sign of an immature writer to be unable to show passion between her characters unless they are arguing.

His views on marriage are a staple of romance novels heroes who spurn marriage and yet, because we don't actually see any scenes where he has dealings with these women who are supposedly throwing themselves at him for his title, they seem even more ridiculous than usual. And did Scottish "lairds" really have a recognized title? This brings me to another point: this book takes place in 1307 but there is absolutely no evidence of this at all in the book. He lives in a keep, but really this book could have taken place anytime between 1200 and 1850 as far as I could tell. One scene in particular made me want to just choke everyone involved and although it is a spoiler I will not cover it b/c I do NOT want you to read this book. Laurel is 9 months pregnant, but Conor, for some odd reason, has to pretend that he does not love her when the Douglass' come for her, so he locks her in a tower and doesn't see her for like two weeks. Supposedly he had to wait for reinforcements, but then they only ended up using 12 men in the battle. So... he treated his pregnant wife like crap for nothing. And she understood why he had to do it.

Rating: I hated this book. I hated the writing, I hated the characters (especially their interactions with each other), and I thought it was overall a horrible book.