Dangerous: Amanda Quick

"From a magnificent ballroom ablaze with lights to an imposing country house steeped in shadows comes a breathtaking tale go an impetuous miss--and a passion that leads to peril...

"At five and twenty, Prudence Merrywhether knew very well the risks a woman took by visiting a gentleman in the dead of night.  But bearding the notorious Earl of Angelstone in his den was the only way to stop him from engaging her hot-headed brother in a duel.  And that was why she found herself ushered into Sebastian's forbidding presence at three in the morning--and thoroughly kissed before dawn,

"She was a country-bred innocent--and an intriguing experience for a man who dwelt more in the shadows than in the sunshine.  Yet as her boldness drew Prue into one dangerous episode after another.  Sebastian found himself torn between a raging hunger to possess her and a driving need to protect her.  And the reckless beauty would soon need all the protection she could get..."

It has been about 11 years since I last read a book by Quick.  Do yourself a favor and don't go and read my old reviews...I did and they're painfully brief and none-too-detailed.  However, I did seem to enjoy her writing quite a bit.  Reading Quick was like a breath of fresh air after the book prior ended up taking me months to finish (no exaggeration).  I read this book in a matter of only a couple of days!  Basically, this book was everything you could want in a period romance novel.  The characters were fun, the plot was unique and intriguing, and I didn't want to put the book down.

The pacing of Quick's writing was much quicker than some other authors I've read, but it worked out quite well.  This book is proof that one does not need to write about every single event, every single moment, every single conversation the characters have in order to build a story and a relationship.  I thought she was quite clever in the way in which she chose to omit certain days and events and, instead, opted to backtrack a little bit in her characters' musings and conversations as a way to "fill in the blanks."  I think this kept the pacing fun and made the story move along at an interesting clip.  Along these lines, the dialogue was witty and amusing.  I really enjoyed the back and forth between Sebastian and Prue; they were well-matched and entertaining together.

As a male lead, I found Sebastian secret hobby a great depart from the usual "black devil, evil lord of darkness" archetype which occurs so often in this genre.  This gave him more depth and personality than I thought he would have when I first began reading.  I also appreciated the lengths Quick went to develop his backstory and make her readers fully appreciate the depth of the animosity between Sebastian and his relatives.  This was no mere feud, and this was nothing to be taken lightly.

As a female lead, Prue was fun, intelligent, self-assured, and brave.  I appreciated all of these things without her and, had she been underdeveloped in any of these areas, then I probably would not have believed her capable of handling Sebastian as she did.  Her own unique hobby was intriguing and I don't believe it's something I've encountered in one of these books before.  It helped to create some common ground with Sebastian, as well as it made her stand out amongst the crowd.  I liked how well she challenged Sebastian and how she was never ashamed to do what she felt was important or right.  I will say, however, that I think her backstory really fell away after only a few mentions -- even her brother seemed to disappear quite fully.  I think a lot of his had to do with the fact that the perspective shifts much more in favor of Sebastian than Prue.  Readers gain far more insight into his musings and his movements than those of Prue.  She got a bit swallowed up by the enormity of Sebastian's character at the end.  For this, I might deduct very minor points.

Above and beyond the captivating chemistry between Prue and Sebastian, I thoroughly enjoyed the plot.  There was a blend of mystery and the supernatural woven in with the traditional romantic tones.  This kept everything fresh and interesting.  Though there were dark undertones due to the natures of Prue and Sebastian's interests, I was impressed at how the story -- for the most part -- remained light enough to lose myself in enjoyment.  The romance made me enjoy the characters, but the plot and mystery kept me turning the pages much longer into the night than I probably should have.

I have a few more standalone novels for Quick sitting on my office bookshelves.  After the year we've had and my (surprising) pathetic reading track record, I may have to dive right into another one and lose myself in what I expect to be another very entertaining read.

The Seduction of Lady Phoebe (Marriage Game, Book One): Ella Quinn

 "Polite society has its rules for marriage.  But for Ella Quinn's eligible bachelors, their brides will show them that rules are for the faint of heart...

"Phoebe Stanhope is not a typical Lady.  As feisty as she is quick witted, no one can catch her, especially when she is driving her dashing phaeton with its perfectly matched horses.  And unlike her peers, experience has guarded her against a growing list of would-be suitors.  But when she encounters Marcus Finley, what she fears most burns deep within his blue-eyed gaze...

"For Lord Marcus, the spark of recognition is but a moment in the love he has held these many years.  Not that he's returned to England, all the happiness he desires rests on Lady Phoebe never finding out that he was the one who turned her heart so cold and distant.  He must work fast to gain the advantage--to convince her what she wants is exactly what she denies--but in order to seduce her into his arms, he must be willing to give up more than he can control..."

This book was a very sweet, thoughtful Christmas gift from my husband.  Fully aware and supportive of my (slight) addiction to period romances, he saw this cover and felt it would be my perfect cup of tea.  He's not a big reader at all, so the fact that he went and physically shopped for a book for me at a brick-and-mortar store was a shock.  That this book actually happened to be the first in a series was a lovely surprise.  I was new to Ella Quinn, but looked forward to diving into this book.

I am currently about a quarter of the way through this book, and it's taken me quite awhile to reach this point.  One would think I'd have been all over my "to be read" stack during this pandemic and the ensuing quarantine, but, alas, my mind has been too preoccupied and my downtime too filled with an ever-increasingly mobile, rambunctious little boy!  I was excited to dip back into my reading of this book because the first several chapters gave such promise.  However, I simply had to put it down after cruising through only a few more pages because I knew I had to start this review.

Quinn's style is not what I am used to.  To be fair, I'm sure a lot of my other favorite authors have a more relaxed style of writing, so this is probably why I sometimes find the dialogue and narration a bit grating and overdone.  It reads like a Jane Austen novel.  This is both good and bad.  For the average reader of romance novels, this may not drag her in as easily as another book might.  Even for someone with my background in literature, some of the turns of phrase were still a tad awkward and (almost) overworked.  I've lost count of all of the different characters and I'm not even 100 pages into the book.  I understand Phoebe has a large family, but there is very little presented in order for the reader to more easily separate them in her mind's eye.  It's almost as if many of them already had their own novels and one is expected to know about their personalities and backstories.  I feel like I'm missing something!  Many of them are already happily married with allusions to wonderful love stories and happy romances of their own.  If they're not developed more and don't serve more than to just pop in and give their private opinions of what's going on with Phoebe, then I don't feel like they're really necessary.  It understand that it's a style of writing (again, very Austen-esque) to bounce from perspective to perspective, opinion to opinion, and character to character, but it's just drags this out and takes away from the actual development of Marcus and Phoebe's relationship.  I want to be invested in them and not the other subplots going on well in the background.  If these were grand supporting characters (a well-developed best friend and confidant, perhaps), then I might've cared more and seen the benefit to their perspective a bit more.  Even if these were characters who did, indeed, have books of their own and I already knew their stories and their personalities, then I might have placed more stock in their opinions.  As I've already mentioned, this is the first book in this series, so that is simply not the case here.  I love it when characters are brought back in other stories and this could have worked well here if Marcus and Phoebe's wasn't the first story in this series.

Then there was the matter of just how closely Phoebe and Marcus were related by marriage.  I don't think I've come across quite such a close relation-by-marriage in a romance novel before and, though no blood was technically involved, something just made it feel a bit odd to me.  I cannot locate the specific law or when it was abolished, but I swear there was something in English law that forbid marriage or relations with one's in-laws--I think having this in the back of my mind the entire time made the plot rub me the wrong way.  I could be wrong and it could have been perfectly legal, but I do believe I read something to that effect during one of my British literature and history courses.

Now to address the fact that Phoebe didn't recognize Marcus.  This was all well and fine.  Time changes people, and the human memory is flawed.  Not to mention I'm sure that his time away would have altered Marcus emotionally, mentally, and physically.  I felt it far less believable when he was pointed out and identified as Lord Marcus from across the room at a party...and then she somehow didn't notice it was the same man who'd just been identified as Lord Marcus when she encountered him in the library?  What?  It was just odd and unbelievable.  I understand what Quinn was going for, but it seems to have missed the mark just a little bit.

I'm going to try to plod along.  I hope for more than just superficial chemistry between Phoebe and Marcus.  I want to see their fire in Phoebe to which the teaser and beginning alluded.  I want to see more romance and passion.  I really hope this book doesn't fall flat and it focuses more on the main characters than it has up to this point.

***

I began writing this review on 08/15/2020 and I finished the book a few days prior to completing this review on 11/29/2020.  Christmas would mark this book being in my possession for precisely one year, so I was very near to that mark before I was able to complete it!  I wanted to love this book -- really, I did.  I think the biggest hurdles I had were the language and the sheer number of characters.  The formality of the dialogue made it a bit more straight-laced than I was used to, and some of the colloquialisms were foreign even to me -- someone who is well-versed in this genre, as well as contemporary and classical British literature!  It is no exaggeration to admit that I struggled at some points.  I just didn't have the same amount of fun I normally do when I read a great romance novel.  The characters...there were so bloody many of them!  I get that Phoebe had a lot of siblings and she was the last of them to be married off, but I lost track and never really got a good sense of who was married to whom when it came to her twin sisters. There were so many of them that I didn't get a sense of their personalities and they added so very little to the plot.  Again, I feel like I would have appreciated them more had they had their own stories and this were not actually the first book in a series!  I felt like I was missing out on something the entire time.  Each of them seemed to hint at great backstories (even her aunt and uncle did!), but I had no knowledge or reference from which to appreciate the insinuations or understand the character development.  I simply must be missing something here...  If this is not actually the first in a series, or if some standalone novels were intended to come before it, then I wish it would have been mentioned somewhere (or maybe this one shouldn't have been labeled the first in the series).

There were aspects I did like.  I think Phoebe and Marcus had great chemistry.  I enjoyed the plot twists as a villain was introduced.  It gave the plot much more depth in the latter half of the book than the beginning.  It all seemed to wrap up rather abruptly, however.  This can be taken one of two ways:  I was pleased that I'd finished reading this book which had taken me so long to finish, but I felt like the ending didn't quite do the characters thorough justice.  The climax hit (no pun intended -- I promise that's not a bad romance novel joke), and that was that.

This book is not for the casual reader of romance novels.  It's far less lighthearted than I normally enjoy.  The points of view and language are quite difficult to follow, as are the myriad of secondary and tertiary characters.  I doubt highly that I will read any others in this series.

My husband, who, if you will remember, purchased this book for me, saw that I was finally near the end and he asked me what I thought.  I so loved the hopeful look in his eyes when he asked that, but I told him the truth.  This book really should have been right up my alley.  The genre and time period were spot on...there was just something about the writing that made me struggle to lose myself.  Some of the phrasing went way above my head.  This author is just not for me, but he couldn't possibly have known that -- I didn't even know that until my reading of the book was well underway.  I sincerely appreciated his thoughtfulness, but maybe I'll give him a list of my favorite authors from here on out.

Tempting a Proper Lady (Brides of Nevarton Chase, Book One): Debra Mullins *UPDATED*

I've finally caught up on all of my reviews!  I finished this book last night.  Going through my original review of the book (which can be found HERE and, for once, isn't too horribly written), I realized that this book took me a terribly long time to read the first time around as well.  At the risk of sounding far too blunt...it was almost painful this time around.  I had to force myself to finish it with the promise that I could read something fun as soon as it was over.

The plot had SO much potential!  The idea that an American heiress was being taken advantage of by an evil, impoverished English lord and the only one who can save her is her former fiancé, a dashing American sea Captain, is fun and exciting.  The way everything played out felt too forced.  There were good bones, but not enough substance.  Everything felt like it started off great, but then it fell to the wayside for a half-baked romance between Cilla and Samuel.  Their attraction was sudden, but the ease with which Cilla allowed Samuel "liberties" lost me.  She wasn't all that "proper" now, was she?  It was too quick.  The abruptness of it all left a funny taste in my mouth.  The ease with which Samuel and Cilla embark upon their "romance" did not sit very well with me.  I think one of the biggest issues was that I didn't care enough about the characters.

The attraction between Samuel and Cilla felt unrealistic and very superficial.  Part of the problem was that we essentially knew VERY little about Samuel other than that he was born a bastard, loved the Baileys as if they were his own family, and he became a sea captain.   That's it.  We know none of his hobbies, no anecdotes, nothing beyond his desire to save Annabelle from a disastrous marriage to the man who'd tried to kill him.  He was horribly underdeveloped.  As I noticed during my first reading of this book back in 2013, I didn't fall even a little bit in love with him...and that's the downfall with any book in this genre.  Readers have to care about the male leads; we have to be attracted to them; we have to have the opportunity to find things we love about them - whether a personality quirk, something they do that's sexy, or even the steamy image we generate in our own minds...I had none of that with Samuel.  I don't even think I ever got a good description of him beyond that he had tanned skin and dark hair.  For the life of me, I don't even know what color eyes he had.  Cilla was pretty much the same.  She had a bit of a better backstory; perhaps because a great deal of the book was told from her perspective.  This may have also contributed to my issues with Samuel; maybe if more of the story had been from his perspective, then I might not have found his character so lacking.  Unfortunately, Cilla still fell a bit short for me.  She was nearly as hollow as Samuel.  The fact that she'd fallen from grace by running off and marrying a man against her family's wishes, she was forced to work for wages, and yet she was still invited as a GUEST in high society was extremely unrealistic.  This, and the informality which all of the characters seemed to speak and address one another felt a bit amateur.  Some of the wording in the dialogue felt off as well (some of it even too modern to suit the story).  I don't know if it was an attempt to make the Americans seem different, but it was more abrasive than realistic.

Additionally, there was a huge revelation about Raventhorpe in Samuel's investigations regarding the lord's underhanded business practices and possible human trafficking...and it was brushed off...almost forgotten and didn't feel as weighty as perhaps it should have.

The story's pacing felt a bit wonky as well.  I flew through the first part, excited to see where the story was going to go.  Then...everything slowed down.  No exaggeration, this book took me months to finish because of this.  And then, all of a sudden, there were 20 pages left in the book and it all came about rather abruptly.  Where was the development?  Where was the real building of a relationship between Cill and Samuel that DIDN'T focus around bedroom antics?  WHY did they fall in love?!  Overall, I was a bit frustrated with this book.  As I mentioned, it had so much potential, but it simply didn't live up to what it could have been.  I have enjoyed books by Mullins in the past, so I don't know why I struggled so terribly through this one.

Lady Sophia's Lover (Bow Street Runners Series, Book Two): Lisa Kleypas *UPDATED*

The original review I wrote for this book way back in 2008 can be found HERE.  (Again, it's probably not worth your time...my poor little eighteen-year-old self wrote it).  While I was on maternity leave, I made a very slow, well-intentioned effort to start reading some of the books I'd amassed in my extensive collection.  I don't have the exact date I completed my re-read of this book (newborns are a bit distracting), but I believe it was sometime in January of 2020.  This updated review was penned on May 19, 2020; I'm going to do my best to provide a decent review of the work.

I enjoyed this book a great deal the first time around, but less so this second read.  My original review  raved about the plot and well-developed characters.  It took me bit longer than usual to get through this book, and I think that is in part because moments felt rather flat to me.  Overall, I liked it a great deal more than the first book in this series.  The characters were much more "fleshed out" than Grant and Victoria were.  Sophia's plan for revenge is, for the most part, I feel better contrived than Grant's desire for revenge in Someone to Watch Over Me.  I understood it much better - she had more realistic motivation to want to bring down Sir Ross.  However, there were moments where her tactics seemed to get a bit hazy.  I realize she's no expert and she's supposed to lose sight of her goal as she falls in love with Sir Ross, but I just got the feeling that there was something missing.  No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't put my finger on what felt off.

Sir Ross was a decent character.  I liked him a great deal in the first book, so it was nice to see him again.  He was better developed than Grant was as the male lead.  His backstory suited him and the plot.  His family was where I felt it got a bit iffy.  His mother, in particular, didn't seem to fit the role I expected and sometimes her interactions felt contrived just plain "off," for lack of a better adjective.  Grant, as a secondary character, felt like a completely new person.  I realize it's intended to show how true love changes a man, but there was no shadow of the man he used to be (other than his work ethic).  Then again, who am I to say who Grant is or isn't...because I sure didn't get a really good sense of who he was in his own book.  But I digress.  Basically, Sir Ross was a better male lead than Grant, but I found his sudden acceptance of his attraction to his new employee (Sophia) to be a bit unrealistic, and rather below where I expected his morals to be.

I thought the plot was interesting, the characters were better developed than the first book in the series, and I was pleasantly surprised by the big plot twist toward the end of this book.  I'll just say that Kleypas earns some serious points for keeping this twist hidden so well.  It was a creative enticement to read the next in the series.

Overall, I have definitely read better books by Kleypas, but there are some redeeming qualities to this particular book.

Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners Series, Book One): Lisa Kleypas *UPDATED*

 This is another re-read of an old book in my personal collection.  Unfortunately, I'm not entirely certain when I finished reading it for the second time, but I do know it was after I gave birth to my son, but before the end of 2019.  I'm going to estimate it was in early December of 2019.  This review was penned on May 19, 2020, so please forgive me if it's not my most elaborate.  You can find my original review of this book HERE.  The review dates all the way back to 2008, so I wouldn't really recommend it...it's far too vague and brief to be of much good to anyone.

I seem to have enjoyed this book less than I did the first time around.  Maybe it's because I'm more jaded from the last 12 years, or maybe because I am mature enough to recognize just how unhealthy the relationship between Grant and Vivien really is...  There is something to be said for a man wanting revenge, but I feel like Grant's reaction was a bit disproportionate to the slight he received at the hands of Vivien.  As he continues to press forward with his plans, I didn't find it sexy or romantic...I found it borderline reprehensible.  I didn't see love blossoming; I saw fascination and obsession.  Grant set out to do something vile and I think that made me take a step back from his character.  Because of this, I found myself less attracted to him than I should have been, given the genre of this book.  We readers are supposed to fall in love with the male leads in these books, but I fell short of that with Grant.  Sure, his character was flawed (and I DO really love a well-written, flaw-inducing backstory), but not always in a way that made him charming or attractive.  I got glimpses of what he could have been, but I never, ever really felt much for him as a character.  Aside from his revenge plot, I think part of the problem was that we didn't really get to experience much of what made him unique.  We know more about him from accounts given by other characters.  I wanted him to be more fleshed out by his own actions, hobbies, hopes, dreams, etc.

Where do I start with Vivien?  I KNOW she doesn't remember who she is or what her life was like before she was attacked; however, she fell short for me as well.  She was so accepting of Grant's stories and was relatively acquiescent when it came to her belief that he'd want to share her bed because, as he'd said, they were in a relationship.  I found it less than believable.  A true, strong female lead would never have allowed it -- would never have just taken his word for it -- not when she thinks over and over again how wrong it feels and foreign the notion is to her.

One of the biggest issues I encountered was I couldn't put my finger on WHY Grant and Vivien fell in love.  They were attracted to one another, to be sure, but Grant didn't actually know anything about Vivien...and we saw so few personal details about Grant.  Though I finished the book rather quickly and I can appreciate the plot twists and the ending, I think some of the components fell short.  Lisa Kleypas has written some wonderful books, but this older one just did not resonate as much with me anymore.

When Maidens Mourn (Sebastian St. Cyr Series, Book Seven): C.S. Harris

"Tales of King Arthur and the Lady of Shalott provide inspiration for this latest gripping installment in the Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series.  Just four days wed, the aristocratic investigator and his fiercely independent bride, Hero Jarvis, become caught up in a twisted intrigue involving ancient legends and a deadly family curse.

"Regency England, August 1812:  Sebastian's plans to escape the heat of London for a honeymoon are shattered when the murdered body of Hero's good friend Gabrielle Tennyson is discovered drifting in a battered boat at the site of a long-vanished castle known as Camlet Moat.  A beautiful young antiquary, Miss Tennyson recently provoked an uproar with her controversial identification of the island as the location of Camelot.  Missing and presumed dead are also Gabrielle's two young cousins, nine-year-old George and three-year-old Alfred.

"Still struggling to define the nature of their new marriage, Sebastian and Hero find themselves occasionally working at cross-purposes as their investigation takes them from London's medieval Inns of Court to its grimy back alleys, and from a newly built country estate to a rural enclave where ancient Celtic beliefs still hold sway.  Probing deeper, Sebastian discovers dark secrets at the heart of the Tennyson family and an enigmatic young French lieutenant who is concealing mysteries of his own.

"As Sebastian and Hero race to unmask a ruthless killer and unravel the puzzle of the missing children, they soon realize that both their lives and the growing love for each other are at risk, threatened by powerful men in high places...and by a tall, dark stranger who may hold the key to Sebastian's own parentage."

This is, unfortunately, another severely delayed review.  I finished reading this book in August of 2019 and, as I mentioned in another review I just posted, I was so frustrated with myself for having accidentally deleted a rather lengthy review that I simply stopped reviewing my books as I read them (that, and I was extremely distracted because we were also purchasing a new home and I was 6 months pregnant in August!).  *Edit:  I was able to figure out how to backdate my review to post on the correct date that I finished this book; the review was written on May 19, 2020.

This was a fitting installment in the Sebastian St. Cyr series of period mysteries.  As always, Harris did not disappoint with her rich, captivating narrative and complex plot.  She remained true to her brilliant, headstrong characters and darkly twisted mystery.  I was exited to see Arthurian mythology playing a prominent role in this particular story.  As a bit of a British literature and history buff, I don't think we see much of an acknowledgment of this in popular literature (unless someone blatantly chooses to write about it with characters and plots specifically set within said mythology).  I even once wrote an entire presentation on the importance of the Arthurian legend in British culture -- specifically how King Arthur makes a resurgence in times of need and strife.  He represents a very specific brand of nationalism (and this happens to tie in perfectly with the plot of this particular book!).  I loved how much this came into play - not only with Gabrielle's claims that Camlet is THE Camelot, but with the mystery surrounding the circumstances of her death.

The plot takes you in a winding journey from suspect to suspect - each seemingly more guilty than the last.  All the while, the simmering tension and desire between Sebastian and Hero is at war with their respective desires to be "in charge."  Each is brilliant in his/her own right, yet they cannot seem to let go of the longstanding battle of wills that stands between them.  As they attempt to work together to solve this mystery, they discover the growing strength of their own relationship and fresh marriage.  This presents a nice undertone to the mystery and tragic murder of Hero's friend.

In this case, solving the murder is not enough.  There is still the matter of the missing boys.  Who has the means and motive to kill the intelligent young woman and kidnap her cousins?  What role does the dashing Frenchman play in all of this?  Could a jealous relative be behind the murder, or is there something much larger at play here?  Could Hero's father have been behind it all along?  If so, what does that mean for the relationship between Hero and Sebastian; or Hero and her father, for that matter?

Another undercurrent in this book is the mystery surrounding Sebastian's true parentage.  We encounter a very intriguing stranger who may just have all the answers -- if he was willing to talk...

The multifaceted nature of this story (in fact, the entire series) makes for a very compelling read.  The period nature of this plot creates a dark and gritty (almost gothic) setting, perfect for those of us who have an interest in period literature.  The characters are all richly crafted and the mysteries are complex and keep you guessing until the very end.  Overall, I am still thrilled with this series and look forward to moving to the next one.

The Temptation of Your Touch (Burke Brothers, Book Two): Teresa Medeiros

"A new enchanting historical romance from a 'superb storyteller' (Booklist) and New York Times bestselling author featuring a handsome, brooding Earl who finds himself drawn to his prim and proper housekeeper.

"Maximillian Burke has always prided himself on being the man that every mother would want her daughter to marry.  But after his scoundrel of a brother makes off with Max's bride, Max discovers it's more satisfying to be a rogue than the perfect gentleman.  Forced to flee London after a duel gone wrong, he seeks refuge at Cadgwyck Manor on the lonely coast of Cornwall, a place as wild and savage as his current temper.  The tumbledown manor comes complete with its own ghost but oddly enough, it's not the White Lady of Cadgwyck who haunts Max's heated dreams - but his no-nonsense housekeeper.  The last thing Anne Spencer needs is a new master, especially one as brooding and gorgeous as the Earl of Dravenwood.  Even as she schemes to be rid of her new employer, she finds herself irresistibly drawn into his strong, muscular arms.  When Mac vows to solve the mystery of Cadgwyk's ghost, he doesn't realize it will put both of their hearts at risk and tempt them to surrender to a pleasure as delicious as it is dangerous."

This is yet another after-the-fact review.  Unfortunately, I don't have the exact date I finished this book, but I believe I'd already finished it before the end of June of 2019.  This review was penned on May 19, 2020, so please forgive it's brevity as I do my best to do it justice so long after I finished reading it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series and was so looking forward to the second that I immediately began reading it.  Max's character changed quite a bit from the first book.  Gone was the totally level-headed, staid man of the first book; in his place was a more emotional, angrier one.  He'd lost out on a woman he cared for, and cut off his brother in the process.  Max felt betrayed and he lashed out quite a bit, even causing a scene in London Society which created the need for some time out of the limelight.  He purchased a new, far-flung estate in Cornwall and retreats there to get away.  Little does he know what he is about to encounter...  Not only do the villagers seem terrified of his new manor, he finds it rather rundown, understaffed, and the hodgepodge of those willing to work there, quite odd, to say the least.  The one he finds most intriguing is his pretty housekeeper, Anne.  There's something about her attitude, her confidence, and her wit that intrigue him.  Max, however, can be just as intelligent, and he quickly catches onto the fact that he is not wanted at Cadgwyck Manor.  The staff seems to be doing whatever they can to make his stay miserable.  He doesn't think things can get worse, until the White Lady begins to make her presence known...  Max knows there must be something more to his "haunted" manor than meets the eye.  When he finally learns the story behind the ghostly apparition, he cannot help but be enthralled by the stunningly beautiful woman whose painting graces one of the walls, and he yearns to know more about her.

Anne is determined to be rid of the Max.  She and her friends have successfully run off a number of would-be owners in the past; how difficult could one more be?  She didn't count on a new master as intelligent, brave, stubborn, and handsome as Max.  She remains determined to maintain her freedom and run the manor as she sees fit, but Max does not seem to want to cooperate.  Drastic times call for drastic measures...only the more time Anne spends with Max, the harder it is for her to want to see him leave.  She struggles to keep him at arm's length when all she wants is to feel his touch.  The undeniable spark between them could be catastrophic if Max is allowed to snoop around the manor..and learn Anne's darkest secret...

Cornwall seems to be a favorite of Medeiros for creating ghostly, eerie settings -- I can clearly recall at least one other book set in Cornwall with similar ghostly tales swirling about.  I supposed I can't blame her.  The gloomy area and spooky moors create the perfect atmosphere for the supernatural.  It also happens to personify Max's moods quite well -- perfect for the brooding male lead.

The secondary characters were wonderfully lively and lent some fun to the plot.  The story could have turned far too dark and brooding, but they helped keep it light and airy.  This makes for a good contrast between the seriousness of the haunted manor and the very realistic relationships between the characters.

It was entertaining to watch all of the characters develop over the course of the book.  Max and Anne had a lovely relationship and I truly did enjoy this book.  The passion was sizzling and the overall story was extremely well-written.  I did not see the plot twist until it was staring me in the face!  Kudos to Medeiros because I think it was handled brilliantly and it was extremely creative.

I definitely recommend this book, as well as its earlier counterpart.  As much as I enjoyed the first, I think this one was my favorite of the two; I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that there was more equality in the narratives of Max and Anne -- it did not feel as one-sided.  Happy reading!