Customer Reviews

His Wicked Sins

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I liked this book but will not read it again. It has all the ingredients of a good gothic novel, a lonely man, haunted heroine and a mysterious villain, but it also had some macabre scenes and Ms. Silver describes some of the crimes with a little too much detail.

This book takes place actually in two time periods. The first is a murder scene at an inn. Three dead bodies are discovered and the investigator is appalled at the horrendousness of the crimes.

The novel then forwards ten years to Beth Canham who is taking a job as a teacher in a girl's school in the English countryside. Her family is destitute and she knows this job will help with the family coffers. She meets Griffin Fairfax when she arrives and she is captivated by him.

Griffin has a daughter, Isobel, who attends the school and she does not speak. She is a troubled girl and Beth has an affinity for her because she suffers from her own phobias, she is claustrophobic and afraid of the dark.

Before Beth arrived two teachers with blond hair were brutally murdered within the last two years. Beth has blond hair and even more disturbing another blond young woman is missing from the area.

Griffin is suspect in these deaths because he discovered the bodies of the two teachers in the woods and villagers whisper that he killed his wife. Griffin warns Beth away but she is irresistibly drawn to him even though she can feel that someone is watching her.

Interspersed throughout this story is the ten year old murders at the Inn. The investigator is dumbfounded as to the identity of the murderer but the reader can ascertain that the same man is responsible for all the killings at the school and the Inn.

Ms Silver also goes into the demented mind of the killer without revealing his identity until the very end. She does an excellent job of exposing his twisted thoughts. The fear of one of his victims is palpable and I actually skimmed through that portion.

The romance here is okay but the mystery is better. I don't know if the leads spent enough time together to convince me they were really that much in love. They keep to themselves speculating about their past. They are interesting people but needed more time to develop their relationship.

This romance is a cut above the average star-crossed lovers story, a thriller of a mystery with a large dose of Jane Eyre tossed in. A beautiful teacher at an 19th-century girls' school, a mysterious widower, his mute daughter, and a murderer who is killing women with long blonde hair, are the ingredients for a story which will keep you guessing until the last moment.

In order to support her impoverished family, Elizabeth Canham forges credentials to obtain a position at Burndale School in the Yorkshires. Her first day there, she meets Griffin Fairfax, father of Isobel, a solitary, odd little girl who becomes one of her pupils. She also learns that Griffin is a widower and that many people believe he murdered his wife and Isobel is mute because she was a witness. A little unnerved by the sudden attraction to Griffin and the unladylike thoughts she finds herself having concerning him, she doesn't know that he is also attracted to her but because of his background and the onus of his wife's death, feels he's unworthy to declare himself. Griffin is newly-returned to his family home, having been disinherited by his father because of the lewd and uncontrollable behaviour of his youth. Once on his own, he continued in that path, womanizing, fighting duels, partnering with a known criminal to keep body and soul together. When his father dies without changing his will, he returns to become master of the place from which he was so dramatically sent away, marries well and has a daughter, only to have his reputation once more in doubt when his wife dies tragically.

Woven into Griffin and Beth's love story is the tale of a murder which occurred fifteen years before, of how it affected a young man who had just become a part of the local constabulary, and the belief that the killer struck several times afterward. Somehow, Beth is involved, for she suffers claustrophobia, has night terrors and dreams of blood and death. The discovery that the teacher she was hired to replace was brutally murdered and another several years before and both were blondes does nothing to calm her already disturbed state. When she discovers Griffin lurking outside the walls of the school at night, she doesn't know if he's watching over her or stalking her. She also isn't sure if the shadowy figure she sees in the hallways and in the forest surrounding the school is Griffin or someone more sinister.

The attraction between Griffin and Beth is beautiful described. Griffin's fears and doubts because of his previous life of crime play against the love he's allowing himself to feel for Beth while she, innocent but not ignorant, is eager to discover the extent of the physical sensation she feel in his presence. He plays on this, taking advantage of stolen moments in the headmistress' office when he visits his daughter, asking Beth to be Isobel's chaperone when the child returns home for visits, inevitably seducing her during one of those visits, and keeping her with him afterward. Surprisingly, no one disagrees or complains, implying that because he is one of the benefactors of the school and if a man who gives them money wants to make a mistress of one of their teachers, they will look the other way. That is not what Griffin wants, however, because he loves Beth. She becomes a salvation to both child and father, and Griffin isn't about to let the unknown danger stalking Burndale School steal away this new chance at happiness. She's better off with him than at the school. And all the while, the police are closing in, and the killer draws nearer, and the finger of suspicion point at Griffin. Then Griffin discovers that he and Beth have a past, a relationship of which neither was aware, and it stretches back to the first murder fifteen years before.

The drawing together of all the clues and the story lines, the explanations of guilt-appearing behaviour, what really happened to Griffin's wife, Isobel's slow recovery due to Beth's care, and the cause for Beth's own terrors are gradually revealed in a satisfactory and climactic way. The identity of the killer is a surprise and a bit of a shock, but the ending, is satisfactory all around.

If you want a gripping story of shadowed houses, mysterious strangers and murder alongside a sensuous love story, with a likable heroine and a handsome, tormented hero, His Wicked Sins is the book to read.

Miss Elizabeth Canham is a fraud but a fraud with a righteous cause. She is a woman shaped by terror and tragedy that has left her riddled with phobias of the dark and the tightness of enclosed spaces. Yet despite the bleakness of her past and the subsequent character flaws, Beth is strong. The livelihood of her family rests upon her shoulders and that burden doesn't go unnoticed as Beth makes her way from London to Yorkshire for Burndale Academy and the young female charges it houses. The position as a teacher awaits her, a position she isn't the least bit qualified for but one that she is determined to secure and retain.

Dark and foreboding, Burdale Academy rests amidst a dark forest and is guarded by three gnarled and long dead trees. As winter looms on the horizon and the wind blows cold, it carries with it the whisperings of death, death so gruesome that it couldn't possibly be real. But the dark manse has known death. Two teachers have died by what was ruled a ravaging by beasts. As clues to the ultimate riddle are revealed, Beth suspects, but can't fully believe, that the beautiful and dark Griffin Fairfax is to blame.

Rumor swirls around Griffin but he cares not for what they say. He knows he's a monster and he doesn't need others to confirm his thoughts. When Beth enters his life with her moon lit ringlets and sky blue eyes, the monster within him howls. His attraction and yearning for her holds no bounds and he hopes to scare her, to drive her back by using the very ugliness that surrounds him. Yet his anger is ignited as well his desire when Beth shows no hope of turning away from him in fear or otherwise. As a man born to privilege then cast into poverty, he has done his worst to survive. When fate renders him the last surviving member of his family, Griffin finds himself once again to be the possessor of a great fortune. But his worst deeds were still yet to come.

Beth can no more stop her heart from fluttering or the tingles of desire from spreading than she can stop the wind and it's Griffin Fairfax that ignites her deepest yearnings. Beth is no fool to think that any man would want to marry a woman with her anxious tendencies that may be passed along to his children and with that knowledge comes the fact that she'll never know a man's intimate touch. Yet her desire for Griffin has grown to such proportions that she's accepted the fact that she will know him with every physical inch of her body and damn the consequences.

Although Griffin has tried his best to scare Beth away from him and the darkness that resides in his soul, Beth's resounding thought in his presence is safety. When she observes him with his frail daughter, she witnesses the shining love for another within his eyes and with it the tragic loss of faith. Griffin's daughter, Isobel, fell mute over three years ago after witnessing the death of her mother by his very hands. A girl with eyes wise beyond her years, she floats through the halls of Burndale Academy with only the slightest hint of awareness yet it's Beth who slowly awakens her from her stupor. It's Beth who finally takes an interest in his daughter. Who speaks to her as though she is really amongst the living and that Isobel too has a soul; one worth saving. It's this that endears Beth to Griffin.

Meanwhile, in the midst of Griffin's and Beth's lingering looks and stolen kisses, a stalker awaits the perfect time to strike. Although Beth feels the hungry eyes of a killer upon her, she dare not voice her concern. She can't prove that she's being watched, nor can she prove that someone has been in her room and touched her belongings. Her position at Burdale Academy is far too important to jeopardize and perhaps all that she is feeling and seeing are figments of her terror filled imagination.

Yet Beth's fears are realized after stumbling upon the body of another victim. Given sanctuary at Griffin's home while being questioned by local authorities, an overheard conversation unlocks the doors of the past within Beth's mind. As renewed terror oozes thick in her veins, she flees the saftely of Griffin's arms and straight into a killers.

Eve Silver paints the most eerie pictures with her words. She manages to create a bleak landscape rife with darkness and fear yet her words never become tedious or over descriptive. My mind was lost in Burndale Academy and it's evil secrets and I liked journeying through it all with Beth and her bravery. Ms. Silver even managed to dupe me with the identity of the killer. I thought I had it all figured out but she managed to creatively surprise me.

Beth was a very strong and extremely intelligent woman. The fact that she overcame near death and faces her terror daily is a testament to her abundant strength. I liked her thought process and how she gave everyone the benefit of the doubt before drawing her final conclusions of them. I also loved her unwavering belief that Griffin was a good man and not the monster he deluded himself into believing.

Lastly, I loved how Beth's past was revealed to the reader. Interwoven in the present are numerous flashbacks. Not specifically Beth's flashbacks but rather a sub story within 'His Wicked Sins' explaining not only the beginnings of serial murderer but how Beth's terror came to be and also what inspired her bravery.

Beth Canham has no choice but to travel to a remote school in Yorkshire as a place of employment. A new teacher for Burndale Academy, she looks forward to being able to send money home to her impoverished family. When handsome Griffin Fairfax helps her on her way after being left standing in the road by her driver, Beth is attracted to him but knows that she must not act upon it. When they arrive at her place of employment, Beth feels something or someone watching her. Ill at ease and uncertain, Beth tries to make the best out of a bad situation. She had no idea the big part in her life that Griffin will end up playing, least of which is lover.

His Wicked Sins creeped me out more than once with its Gothic tone and its mysterious storyline. Someone is killing young women in Yorkshire and I knew it was going to try for Beth. I knew it and could not stop myself from reading about it! While I knew Griffin, as the hero, couldn't possibly be the guilty party, I couldn't help but suspect him - especially when he and Beth became romantically involved. His Wicked Sins is wicked all right. It kept me from doing anything for the time it took me to read it cover to cover!

Talia

Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

In 1828 Yorkshire, impoverished Elizabeth "Beth" Canham arrives at a remote site awaiting the coach to take her to Burndale Academy where she is the new teacher. Griffin Fairfax offers her a ride although he admits he is not from the academy. She accepts. In front of Beth at the academy he asks a servant if she (not the servant) will come to him; the servant says she refused. Upset he leaves abruptly for his nearby home at Wickham Hall; while Beth ponders her attraction to him. Griffin is upset that Isobel would not come with him. His housekeeper tells him her niece Sarah is missing and assumed murdered by the serial killer who is stalking the area. Griffin thinks back to his late wife Amelia.

Beth senses that someone evil is watching her. It reminds her of her youth when she feared so much. She fears the dark and small closed spaces, but tries to hide it. She sees Griffin and tells him to go play with his daughter, but he refuses as he says she blames him for her mother's death. Griffin is attracted to Beth not just because she is pretty, but because he feels she knows his soul and still wants him though he believes he is unworthy of her and asks if she heard of the rumors that he killed his wife. Soon she will know all the answers, but may not live long to tell anyone else like the father and daughter she loves.

The serial killer subplot is cleverly designed so that the hero looks guilty and ties everything together while the romance between the lead couple is fun to follow. Historical romantic suspense readers who like a gothic feel to their tales will enjoy Eve Silver's fine late Regency.

Harriet Klausner

This tale is very nicely woven, early 1800's Jack the Ripper type crime novel. For once I am at lost on how to explain a book...its the type of book that comes together & makes sense at the end. There is a dark romance and crimes and troubbled past lives all going on in this wonderfully written book. Is it the best book I ever read? No, surely not BUT it was a fun read that I had a hard time putting down. The cover makes this book look like a sappy erotic novel and it most definitly is not.

Words can't describe how much I liked this book. I've read all of her non-supernatural romances (I'm not a big fan of paranormal) and this one rates up there with Amanda Quick.

I don't usually read the dark suspense style of romance but this is the perfect example of what I'd want to see in one.

The dark tortured hero and the lovely heroine who thinks that the hero is some sort of monster as she tries to stop herself from falling in love with him. - that is the style.

The villains in all her stories end up being someone I didn't quite expect, and that's a great part of it too. No one likes a predictable story.

5 stars, no 6 stars, for all her historical suspense novels.

Henry Pugh has been called to a gruesome murder scene. The owners of a local pub are killed in a very bloody manner. Upstairs he finds the maid Ginny, with her hair scalped from her head and her fingers cut off... And the horror doesn't end there.

Years later Elizabeth travels to Yorkshire to attend a teaching position on a local boarding school. She needs the job to help her family survive. But when she gets at the village, it appears that they have forgotten her. Luckily for her, Griffin Fairfax is on his way to the school to visit his daughter. His nearness evokes feelings in Elizabeth she hasn't felt before.

But once at the school rumors about the handsome gentleman makes her apprehensive. He seemed to have been the one discovering the dead bodies of several of the serial killers victims. When Beth is wandering on the grounds of the school, she gets the uncomfortable feeling of being watched... and most of the times she runs into Griffin right after that.. But she doesn't dare to confide in anyone, since she has secrets best kept to herself... Is she attracted to a coldhearted killer, or can she trust her heart to make the right decision?

Eve Silver has a way with words that makes me reading her books and forgetting all around me...

That is what happened with this one too...

Elizabeth has had a terrible experience in her past, thus making her an oddity in her town. Her mother taught her to deal with her fears and anxieties, but she never really gotten over them. When she attends a new position as teacher and odd things happen, she must face her fears since she can't afford to loose the income she is providing. When she is near Griffin Fairfax, her fears seem to vanish, only to be replaced with other feelings. But can she trust the one man who understands her, but also seem connected to each murder....

Griffin is a gentleman and rumors claim he killed his own wife in front of his daughter. The child refuses to speak, and it takes another bruised soul like Beth's to break down Isobel's walls. Griffin recognizes Beth's fears and knows how to handle them. Both have their secrets, but who will reveal them first?

But while they deal with their feelings, the serial killer has set his eye on Beth.

I just loved His Wicked Sins... Mrs. Silver takes you out of your daily life and pulls you into her world. I confess, there were moments Beth was being watched and I felt the shivers creeping over my back. Telling myself not to be foolish and not to look over my shoulder.

The tension is tangible, the surroundings well described and the sensuality much more present than previous Dark Gothic books of Eve Silver.

I'm so glad I got the occasion to read this in advance, and I suggest you all look out for this book when it hits the shelves. It will give you some nice hours of entertainment.

This is the first book I have read by Eve Silver and initially my expectations were rather low. The information on the back suggested it would be yet another run-of-the-mill historical romance. I was very pleasantly surprised, however, to find myself reading a well-crafted gothic romance.

Beth Canham's family have fallen into poverty and so she has taken a position as a schoolteacher to try to supplement the meagre family income. However once she arrives at Burndale School she discovers it's a rather gloomy building. This might not usually matter but Beth is hiding a rather large secret - that she is terrified of the dark and has very bad claustrophobia. However, Beth knows it's vitally important that she keeps the job to earn money for her family and despite having no experience of teaching she sets about trying to do a good job of it.

Right at the beginning Beth notices the pupil Isobel, a mute girl whose father Griffin Fairfax, one of the major benefactors of the school, has rather intruded upon her notice. Beth is immediately attracted to Griffin and yet he's an enigmatic man who rarely smiles and whose relationship with his daughter is clearly strained. As Beth settles into the school she begins to hear the rumours - that two previous blonde-haired schoolteachers have been murdered and that Griffin Fairfax killed his wife. Can Beth make sense of these rumours? Can she hide her attraction to Griffin? Can she keep the secret of her phobias? And is the murderer of the other women after her?

This story is quite slow-moving but written in a very pleasing style so that it was never boring. The author had rather a tendency to use the word 'likely' instead of the English 'probably' in her characters' speech which marked it out as American-authored, as did the use of 'fall' for 'autumn', but these are common errors and didn't particularly detract from the story.

Eve Silver delves deep into the character of Beth so that we understand how she feels when she has her panic attacks. Griffin is harder to understand, perhaps, but the slow-building romance between the two of them is excellently portrayed. The murders play a lesser part in this book than I might have thought and I wasn't ever seriously worried about the identity of the villain, although there were a few options offered, but the underlying message of the book, that of people coming to terms with events in their past once they have the strength of someone else to lean on, was very successful. I enjoyed this book so much that I will look out for others by Eve Silver.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2008

I love this book! When I read Eve Silver's first book, I was thrilled to find a "gothic" type story with spice. Each successive book of hers has gotten better, and she's now an automatic buy for me. The plot has been described in other reviews, so I'll just say that the story definitely holds your interest, the romance is very satisfying, and there are some very emotional scenes. I LIKED the hero and heroine. (That is SO important.) And the damaged child tugged at my heart. I wholeheartedly recommend this book, and can't wait for her next one!