To Sin With a Scoundrel
Author: Cara Elliott
Publisher: Grand Central
Pub. Date: February 23, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0446541299
Retail Price: $6.99
384 pages

A reclusive widow known for her scientific scholarship, Lady Ciara Sheffield is shadowed by rumors that she poisoned her husband . . .

A rakehell rogue notorious for his devil-may-care antics, Lucas Bingham–the Earl of Hadley–is not accused of murdering anything–save for the rules of Polite Society. The only thing they have in common is seeing their names featured in the lurid gossip columns of London’s newspapers. Until an ancient manuscript draws them together.

Ciara needs a titled fiancé to quell the slanderous speculations which may send her to the gallows. Lucas needs a brilliant scholar to help his elderly uncle decipher the secrets of the mysterious manuscript. So when her friends urge her to accept the earl’s proposal of a temporary alliance, Ciara decides that she has no choice but to make a deal with the Devil. And so begins a seductive dance of sinful pleasures and hidden desires as the two of them waltz through the mansions of Mayfair.

~*~*~

What happens when a handsome carefree rogue meets a feisty, brilliant scientist?  They each gain an ally, but lose their hearts!

To Sin with a Scoundrel is the first in the Circle of Sin Series by Cara Elliott.  This series revolves around the romantic escapades of three brilliant and independent women.  In the first novel, we are introduced to Lady Ciara Sheffield who has a passion for only two things: science and her young son.

She has been gracing the pages of London’s premier tabloid thanks to her deceased husband’s awful family who insists on blaming her [publicly[ for his death.  They know that her son has inherited her family’s fortune and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.  She has made every attempt to take it all in stride, but should their slanderous accusations continue, it can land her in the gallows.

Lucas, Earl of Hadley, who is better known as "Mad, Bad, Had-ley" because of his outrageous antics and flip-skirt behavior, has been sharing the limelight with Ciara.  He is sly, sarcastic and doesn’t care what others think of him or his lifestyle.

Ciara and Lucas both need something from each other: Ciara needs a titled fiancé to help squash the terrible rumors once and for all and Lucas needs to have a mysterious manuscript deciphered for his uncle and only Ciara has the know-how. In an effort for them to both get what they want, they agree to alliance that lead them to lose their hearts.

I had a very hard time putting this book down!  Cara gave us delightful characters and witty, clever dialogue. Not to mention that the body language of each character spoke volumes; from their initial reluctance, to their quickly developing weakness for one another. I loved the banter between Ciara and Lucas. They are intelligent and funny and their conversations are a great diversion to the sizzling heat between them. He pretends he is attracted to her body when her mind turns him on more than he ever expected, while Ciara is put-off by his notorious reputation, but is surprised to find a much more sensitive man hidden underneath.  In addition, Cara Elliott has a knack for describing the setting without overdoing it allowing the reader to be transported to another time and place.

June 2010

If all this isn’t enough, we’ve got a little side action going on with the mystery of who broke into Ciara’s home to ransack her laboratory and who would want to kidnap her son.  The secondary characters are equally intriguing and I’m looking forward to their stories in the following books coming in June 2010 and March 2011.

If you liked Meredith Duran’s Bound by Your Touch, then you’ll like To Sin with a Scoundrel!

Rating: 9 (Excellent)

Heat Level: 3 (Sensual)

Buy Links: Book Depository ~ $5.49 | Barnes & Noble ~ $5.59

Promise Me Tonight
Author: Sara Lindsey
Publisher: NAL / Signet
Pub. Date: February 2, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0451229373
Retail Price: $6.99
320 pages

Isabella is determined to marry James…

Isabella Weston has loved James Sheffield for as long as she can remember. Her come-out ball seems the perfect chance to make him see her in a new light.

James is determined never to marry…

James is stunned to find the impish girl he once knew has blossomed into a sensual goddess. And if he remembers his lessons, goddesses always spell trouble for mortal men.

A compromise is clearly necessary.

When Izzie kisses James, her artless ardor turns to a masterful seduction that drives him mad with desire. But, no stranger to heartbreak, James is determined never to love, and thus never to lose. Can Isabella convince him that a life without love might be the biggest loss of all?

~*~*~

Readers will find this funny, heart-wrenching and promising debut a delightful read.

Promise Me Tonight is the first in a series of Shakespearean name siblings who each find love. In this romantic tale, readers meet Isabella Weston, the eldest daughter of the Weston clan, who is madly in love with her older brother’s best friend, the guy next door. Though this is a theme that has been used repeatedly, Sara Lindsey was able to hold my interest until the very last page.

Isabella is a persistent, beautiful and witty young woman. She has desired James for so long and now that she is all grown up, she will do whatever it takes to get her man. For the first half of the book, I disliked “Izzy” because she was constantly crying and begging. Some of her tactics were deceitful and selfish. However as the story progressed, I found myself rooting for her. She slowly started to mature and come into her own. I realized her tenacious behavior was inherited. Who wouldn’t be a romantic with parents who openly loved one another and set an example of a passionate marriage? By the end of the story, my opinions of Izzy evolved.

James is a very honorable and stubborn man. After suffering some painful incidents as a child, James closes his heart and vows never to love or marry.  For most of the book, James’s theories on love were tiresome. I understood and even sympathized with him at times, but I found myself becoming bored with his excuses. It was only toward the end that the author revealed more of his past and his reasons for fighting Isabella so hard.  Finally, he was able to confront his past and succumb to his desires for Isabella.

Some of the things I liked about the story were that there was a lot of seduction and sexual buildup in this book. The love scenes were hot, steamy and tasteful. Sara writes well written love scenes.  I also liked the introduction to the Weston family. They were well written and developed secondary characters that added to the story. The close knit family had some of the funniest lines in the book. They loved James as a part of the family and their hilarious well intentioned schemes left a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

For true romantics and die hard fans of historical romance, I recommend Promise Me Tonight. I eagerly await the second book in this series.

Rating: 7 (Good)

Heat Level: 3 (Sensual)

Buy Links: Book Depository ~ $5.49 | Amazon Kindle ~ $4.36

Most authors have thick skins because opinions are so subjective when it comes to their work. That said, I’d like to briefly explain how I tackle the dreaded DNF reviews I receive from the reviewers. If I can find another reviewer to read the book, I will have someone else have a go at it. Once I receive that new review, I will post both–one will be the DNF and one won’t (2nd reviewer must complete the book). So, to some degree, readers will then get two takes on the book. If I can’t find another reviewer to review the book I will post the DNF review and of course readers will know they are getting an opinion based only on a partial reading of the book and not the whole picture.

I’d like to avoid DNF as much as I can. They have a place, but I think it should be a very, very small percentage of reviews posted. Readers want the whole take on the book, not a partial read.

~*~*~

Knight of Glory
Author: Nicole Zoltack
Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing
Pub. Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1936000494
Novella

Sir Geoffrey, along with some companions, has been sent away from Arnhem, entrusted by Queen Aislinn for a special mission, and has to leave behind the mysterious lady Celestia. On his journey, he uncovers seeds of a sinister plot, learns a horrible secret, and makes a new friend in exile Jenanna.

Their mission completed, Geoffrey and his companions rush to two different kingdoms to ask for aid. Danger and betrayal lurks around every corner, and even allies have secrets that could prove deadly. Geoffrey’s feelings for Celestia grow and wane. After learning some of Celestia’s secrets, he begins to have second thoughts about his love for her and is even drawn to Jenanna.

Rumors abound that the Speicans have enlisted a mage of their own, to work unspeakable, forbidden magic. The war between Speica and Arnhem has just begun. Will Geoffrey survive the battle to live another day and discover which woman he truly loves?

~*~*~

Lack of emotion, poor characterization and poor world-building amounted to a DNF for me.

Let me preface this review by saying I enjoy fantasy. I have lost myself in Middle-earth many, many times during my life. I have also lost myself is such disparate fantasy worlds as J. K. Rowling’s and Guy Gavriel Kay’s.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that Nicole Zoltack’s fantasy realm of Arnhem had the same effect on me. I read about a quarter of Knight of Glory, when I decided that the story’s problems made reading onward more trouble than it was worth.

I do not completely fault the author for this, by the way. The ebook contained numerous typos and confusing sentences, enough to make me see it required much tighter editing.

The story involves Sir Geoffrey, a knight for the mythical kingdom of Arnhem, and his quest for love. He is also involved in a secret mission for the current king and queen of the land to bring back news of the former king and queen, who are thought by the general populace to be dead but who have actually gone into hiding. In typical fantasy fashion, he picks up companions along the way, including Jenanna, a mysterious girl from another land.

My issues with the story-telling began in the opening chapter, in which the hero attends a ball and finds himself attracted to a woman named Celestia. How do I know of his attraction? Because the author tells me about it without actually showing any of the emotional impact that ought to accompany such an event. The characters talk, but no chemistry exists between them. That’s all right, actually, because I got the idea from the outset that Celestia isn’t the heroine of the story.

If anything, she’s an enemy spy.

Which brings me to my next point. For a fantasy hero, Geoffrey comes across as awfully dense. He doesn’t pick up on anything off about Celestia when she keeps directing the conversation away from her origins. Later in the story, Geoffrey lets Jenanna (the heroine) join what is supposed to be a top-secret mission, even though he tells her to her face that he does not trust her. Mere paragraphs later, he accepts food from her, even though it’s a sort of food he is unfamiliar with.

Any good fantasy relies on solid world-building to keep the reader engaged. Unfortunately, here again, this story falls short. The kingdom of Arnhem seems to rely on a medieval-level of technology. There are a lot of knights running around with swords, involved in sieges and such. Add to this a few mentions of mythical creatures, such as dragons and kelpies, the use of magic, a holy order, and you’ve got your typical Dungeons-and-Dragons sort of fantasy world.

It’s jarring to me as a reader, then, to read about the northern hemisphere, say, or to have one of the characters talking about going through puberty. Such instances (and there were others) read as too modern for the world.

The chapter where Geoffrey and his companions finally come upon the king and queen in hiding, only to find the queen dead and the old king nearly so, turned into the deal-breaker for me. It was written in such a way that I was supposed to believe the former monarchs were popular and beloved. When both of them died without any of the characters showing the least bit of grief or remorse, or, really, any emotion at all, I was done.

How am I supposed to believe in an emotionless romance?

Rating: DNF

Heat Level: N/A (I didn’t actually get to anything resembling kissing, but the rating on the publisher’s website is “sweet”)

Buy Links: Desert Breeze Publishing ~ $5.99

Lessons From a Scarlet Lady
Author: Emma Wildes
Publisher: NAL / Signet Eclipse
Pub. Date: January 5, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0451228796
Retail Price: $6.99
336 pages

The Duke of Rolthven’s new wife, Brianna, is the perfect aristocratic bride. So what would society say if they saw her with a copy of Lady Rothburg’s Advice–a courtesan’s lessons for the boudoir? When his innocent wife suddenly becomes a vixen in the bedroom, the proper Duke is truly astounded by her seductive powers. Following a courtesan’s advice might lead to trouble-but will it lead to Brianna’s ultimate desire: winning her husband’s love?

~*~*~

Emma Wildes takes the historical romance genre and adds a touch of erotic. Lessons From a Scarlet Lady is an intriguing read that begins with one heck of a steamy sex scene!

Having never read Wildes previous novel,  An Indecent Proposition, I wasn’t quite sure what I was about to read. At the start, we’re introduced to Brianna Northfield (newly married to Colton Northfield, Duke of Rolthven) who is attempting to seduce her prim and proper husband by wearing a very revealing gown to the opera… And succeeds.  We soon learn that Brianna has acquired a book of advice on seducing a man and pleasing him sexually in all types of manners.

The storyline also introduces Colton’s brothers Robert and Damien as well as Brianna’s closest friends, married Arabella Smythe and single Rebecca Marston.   I found that as the story went on the main focus shifts to a budding love between Robert and Rebecca, and the storyline with Brianna and Colton, while still being important, fades into the background.  Wildes shift in focus still keeps Brianna and Colton in play through group interactions and very detailed, borderline erotic love scenes.  The scandalous book also changes hands, allowing the reader to follow both Brianna and Rebecca, as they explore its advice. There are also tidbits from the book at the start of each chapter, allowing the reader to gather a bit more of what the book is all about aside from what the ladies are either discussing or putting into action.

In all the other historical romances I’ve read, the author will take her time to build sexual tension between the characters, allowing the reader to start to anticipate when the main characters will unite. Not Wildes! From the very beginning there are many steamy scenes, which I am perfectly fine with, but those readers who like gentle, less descriptive love scenes, beware!

The only issue I found with Lessons is that the main focus is shifted quite abruptly, and I found myself having to stop and gather my thoughts to follow along. It was surprising, as I was expecting to only follow Brianna and her trials, not both hers and Rebecca’s.

In the end, I found myself wanting more, much more. I wanted to know more about Robert and Rebecca’s story as well as the continuation of Brianna and Colton’s.  I certainly hope that Wildes has plans of revisiting them in the future! Emma if you are reading this, remember Damien still has a story to be told!

Rating: 7.5 (Good +)

Heat Level: 5-6 (Bordering on Erotic)

Buy Links: Book Depository ~ $5.99 | Diesel eBook Store – $4.57