TEST
In this historical romance, the story, for much of the book, centers on this burning question: When will our heroine, Bridget Newbury, give up her maidenhead to the hero, Lord Curan Ramsden? Two thirds of the way through the book, the two finally do the deed and, much to my surprise, despite the fact that Bridget is a well-bred young lady in the 16th century, she begins their tryst with a sexual act one rarely associates with virgins.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been taken aback when, a few pages later, Curan, apparently uninterested in the bed in the room, deflowers his young bride on a nearby table. The scene is improbable. And while I’m all for passion in my romances, a book that’s about nothing but passion, and implausibly rendered passion at that, isn’t appealing to me.
As the book begins, Bridget’s mother, Lady Connolly, tells Bridget her father has arranged a marriage for her. Bridget is surprised to hear this because, three years ago, she was betrothed to a fine-looking border lord, Sir Curan Ramsden. When Bridget points out she’s already promised to another, her mother tells her that “things change quickly these days” and that for political reasons, her father – he lives in London serving the court of King Henry VIII – wishes her to wed Lord Oswald, an elderly man who has already divorced one young wife for not giving him an heir. Her mother tells her, “We must do all in our power to insure your union is a solid one,” and tells Bridget she has someone for Bridget to meet.
That someone is a courtesan. Bridget’s mother has hired the woman to teach Bridget how to seduce a man in order to ensure that Bridget will be able to hold the interest of her picky husband to be. Yes, you read that right: Bridget’s mom hires a strumpet to teach her virginal daughter how to have hot sex. In her first lesson, Bridget discovers how to strip, flirt, and master a man’s lust. In her second, she hides behind a screen and watches the courtesan have steamy sex with a paying customer (which is where she learns the non-virginal act she later performs on Curan). Bridget enjoys these lessons — I suspect she’s more of a voyeur than most young virgins in the 16th century — and is disheartened to think she must ply her new found knowledge on the elderly Lord Oswald.
Fortunately for Bridget, before she can be sent to London to seduce her new betrothed, her old betrothed comes to kidnap her. Curan has been warned Bridget’s father may renege on the agreement the two families made and Curan is determined to see that doesn’t happen. He arrives at Bridget’s house, sees she’s as tempting as he’d recalled, and announces she’s leaving with him in the morning. Since he’s accompanied by his army and she finds him devastatingly alluring – in another unlikely scene, he demands she bathe and dry all of him – Bridget accedes to his will. Curan, an alpha male with a big sword, tosses her into the back of a wagon, and carts her off to his castle on the Scottish border.
Once at his home, Curan is determined to bed and thus be indisputably wed to Bridget. Bridget lusts for him but doesn’t want to disobey her father. Curan puts the moves on her, she puts him off. They kiss, she pulls away. He fondles her into ecstasy, and she runs away. It’s monotonous. By the time Curan chases her down — again with his entire army — and has her on that table, I was ready for the tale to conclude.
It didn’t, and that turned out to be a good thing. In the last third of the book, Curan and Bridget, now gleefully sharing connubial bliss, head to London to the court of King Henry VIII. Once there, the plot livens. Intrigues are solved, jokes are made about the marriage mad royal, and misunderstandings are explained. The last hundred pages of this book are more compelling than the first two hundred. Bridget and Curan are a pleasant couple and once they’ve slaked their initial lust, they develop interesting personalities. They even focus on things other than sex. But by that time, I’d lost interest. At the end of the book, as Curan is trying yet again to get under Bridget’s blankets, she rebuffs him, saying “not tonight.” It’s a measure of how overdone the passion portion of this book is that I was glad to hear it. If the two had sex one more time, I think I would have gotten a headache.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Renaissance Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 18/05/11
Publication Date: 2011/01
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.