Customer Reviews

A Midsummer Night's Sin (Blackthorn Brothers)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Regina Hackett believes she is on the way to yet another recital with her cousin Miranda so she can be shown off to her best advantage as her fathers only goal for her is to marry no less than an earl for him. But when Miranda springs the idea of attending a masquerade ball, Regina is reluctantly talked into switching plans. After all, the freedom to just dance and be herself for just a bit of time is to hard to resist as she is tired of always being perfect for fear of her fathers wrath. While at the ball, she dances one magical dance with a dashing man and then takes a moonlight stroll and shares a forbidden kiss. But as the man whispers in French of all the naughty things he would like to do with her, her sanity returns and she quickly flees...only to find Miranda missing and in that quick moment, her life is changed forever.

Robin Blackthorn, better known as Puck, thinks he is out in the gardens sharing a passionate embrace with a lady of the night and is aghast when he realizes that the beauty he is with is an innocent. He decides to quickly forget her but when he learns that her cousin is missing and then proceeds to find signs of a struggle, he is drawn back to Regina. He knows that they can truly never be together, he is a bastard son of an earl and can not marry the daughter of wealthy merchant who is basically shopping Regina around for his own good. But he can not turn away from the situation involving Regina, especially as quite a few petite, blond young ladies have been disappearing off the streets. He believes these woman are being sold and reassures Regina that they will find Miranda unharmed as she is a virgin and therefore much more valuable. Together, they set out to find Miranda and must overcome many hurdles to the heart and to the body.

Overall, this was a good story that moved quickly along. I guessed the mystery aspect early on but the how and why still alluded me and had me flipping the pages. Kasey Michaels seems to have a knack for writing some creepy characters and this time it is Reginas absolutely dreadful father. Shudder. Crazy man. If you read the previous book in this series, The Taming of the Rake, you know we met Puck in that story and he was just a delight and I am happy to say his own story was a delight as well. Puck is just the sort of man we all wished we knew and loved. He's handsome with his slightly too long hair and mesmerizing eyes, he's funny and charming, but he is also strong, protective and steadfast. Together with Regina, who is also strong, stubborn and steadfast, they are good pairing. Regina is resigned to her fate laid out by her father, but she wants to remember one night of true passion with a man she desires and Puck tries to resist but sigh, they never can resist to long. But once again, the other brother almost stole the show (Puck almost stole Beaus story for me) and we learned and saw a bit more of the middle bastard brother, Black Jack, and I can not wait for his story now! If you enjoy a romance with a darker side story but still reads easily with a strong cast of characters that find a way to emerge from near tragedy, this is a great one to check out. 4 stars

I picked up this book because I was completely captivated by its predecessor The Taming of the Rake (Hqn). I loved the character and the storyline of running off to Gretna Green. I thought Puck was such a fun character that I was really looking forward to reading his book, but found myself disappointed.

Robin "Puck" Blackthorn, one of the Blackthorn Bastards, lives for the pleasure of the moment. He is determined to take English Society by storm only to be stormed over by Regina Hackett. After a chance encounter at a scandalous masquerade party, Regina finds she needs assistance to locate her missing cousin. Puck isn't sure why he is so drawn to Regina, only that he is determined to help. Soon, Puck and Regina are combining efforts to find her missing cousin among white-slave-traders and try as they might to keep their hands off each other.

Regina is the granddaughter of an Earl, but the daughter of an upstart shipping merchant. Her mixed heritage keeps her in a strange position within English society. They all want her money, but want to stick their noses up at how she got it. She's usually very practical and is VERY afraid of her father. Her one act of impulsive behavior lead to her cousin going missing, but it also lead her to Puck. Puck was a fun-loving character. He knows bad things happen, that serious things happen, but why let it make you sad or serious all the time. He finds joy and fun in everything, which makes him a great character to read about and be with.

Despite how much fun Puck was, he couldn't really redeem this story for me. It seemed to follow the tried-and-true path set out by every Rake who falls for the innocent Miss. The bad guy is easily identifiable in the beginning of the story and you must wait for the Hero and Heroine to figure it out. The rake can't control his bodily responses to this amazing woman and we hear all about his confining breeches.

I think the main thing is that I find stories revolving around slave traders to be boring. *gasp* I know. Maybe it's just that I've read what seems to be SO MANY of them lately that it's all over done for me. This book is missing the originality that I loved about its predecessor.

So, as you can see, my review is greatly tainted by my personal preferences. I would highly recommend the first book and only marginally recommend this one--and only if you've read the first one. I am worried that their brother's book Much Ado About Rogues (Blackthorn Brothers) will fall into this unoriginal storyline as a lot has been hinted at about his story. Even still, I am going to read the next one in hopes that it gets better. Crossing my fingers.

The Blackthorn Brothers Series
The Taming of the Rake (Hqn)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SIN
Much Ado About Rogues (Blackthorn Brothers)

Puck's story starts off as though it will involve his quest to be embraced by society then quickly swerves into a missing person's tale. It's a shame that the flamboyant life of the party is so quickly discarded. Puck retains his sense of fun but loses a bit of his charm as he becomes consumed with finding Regina's abducted cousin. While the identity of the villain is obvious long before the need to discover him arises, the detective work is engaging. Readers of the first book will welcome the return of Black Jack (but not Beau) as Puck's path crosses that of his mysterious brother. The whole of the book, from meeting to happily married after, takes place in five days. This gives the heroine a whiff of idiocy, as she allows her attraction to Puck (and desperation for her cousin) to override all other concerns. Overall, it's a good read but not a necessary one.

This was my first book by this author, though it won't be my last. It's actually the second in the series--and I'm definitely going to pick up the first when I get a chance--but the characters tell you enough about themselves that you don't feel as if you're lost if you jump into this one first.

Very much a part of Regina and Puck's story is the fact that neither of them has an ideal life. Regina's mother has turned to alcoholism as her method of dealing with Regina's father, a rich, unscrupulous merchant who used his money to "buy" a wealthy family for himself and plans to solidify his success by marrying his only child to a wealthy, titled man. Regina loves her mother, fears her father, and feels helpless and frustrated in her life. Puck is the youngest son of a marquess who is best known for his three illegitimate sons whom he had with his actress mistress, a woman who also happens to be his sister-in-law. Puck and his brothers are wealthy and attractive, but will never be accepted into society because of the circumstances of their birth. They meet at a masquerade ball that Regina should never have gone to and at which Regina's cousin mysteriously disappears. As Regina and Miranda weren't even supposed to be at the entertainment, Regina's options for help in finding her cousin are limited, and she turns to Puck. Fortunately, he turns out to be the right man for the job, having inherited just the right amount of acting talent from his mother and a healthy dose of secret agent capability from his middle brother, "Black" Jack Blackthorn.

This novel had a nice blend of mystery, suspense, and romance. Puck's character was very much like his literary namesake, with a definite fun and lighthearted manner throughout the novel--I'm a real sucker for novels that incorporate themes, characters, and plots from Shakespeare, and this one did not disappoint. I look forward to backing up and reading Beau's story as well as Jack's, when it is released.

Regina Hackett and Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn (Puck) meet at a taboo mask ball and become embroiled in a search for missing girls, one of whom is Regina's cousin Miranda, whose blood is all noble--not diluted like Regina's that is polluted with blood of her rich but crude tradesman father.

Regina knows she is a commodity to her father who plans for her to marry a nobleman and have sons so Reginald Hackett can say his grandsons are lords of the realm. Of course, Regina's lady mother, who drinks excessively, despairs of her daughter's shortcomings and blames them all on Mother Hackett and the Hackett genes. When Regina makes a miscue, she says it is Mother Hackett's fault (rather like "the devil made me do it"). However, she is reared with luxuries, fine clothes, and sent out into Society with the adventurous Miranda for the Season. Miranda's risqué plan gets her into a heap of trouble and Regina into a relationship that is not at all what her father had planned--but, oh, what, an experience for Regina!.

Puck is one of the bastard sons of Marquess Blackthorn. His personality fits his nickname for he is mischievous, lovable, happy, charming and makes people feel good about themselves. He keeps his intelligence under wraps most of the time and is not allergic to using his influence and money to get what he wants. He loves a challenge and Regina does become a challenge. He sees her not-yet-awakened passion, her determination, and her intelligence and cannot refuse her entreaties to make love with her. She is precious to him.

Conflicts, clandestine plans, mystery, and suspense pile up and get entangled as Regina and Puck delve into the sordid business of human trafficking. Some of the forays have a touch of human but pulse-pounding close calls and vicious traffickers that have no respect for human lives make A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SIN compelling.

Kasey Michaels captivates with delightful dialogue and amazing humor that ranges from sublime to ridiculous as she reveals Puck's joy for life and the awakening of Regina to womanhood. She makes the characters vibrantly alive and unique. Even the secondary characters have distinctive personalities. Regina's mother becomes a different person when she is free of her oppressive husband and even stops drinking. Puck's brother, Black Jack and his men grab the reader's attention as they become involved. They add new, intense twists and turns to the plot as the reader gets pulled into the rough London dock district and into old roman caves. Of course, Regina's father brings an even more disturbing element to the happenings.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SIN deals with the horrific issue of human trafficking but it also lets the reader in on a sparkling, sizzling love story that overrides all else. Good Reading!

Originally posted at The Long and Short of It Romance reviews

3.5 Feathers
Reviewed by Francesca & posted at Under the Covers Book Blog

Funny and witty but also at times a bit dull and slow. The premise of this story was interesting enough, two girls of "society" are supposed to go to a society ball but instead go to a Masquerade party thinking it'll be fun, and yes they lie to their parents. However this Masquerade is more for adult tastes, yes pretty much a k* nky f* ckery fest.

Regina kinda looses sight of her cousin at the party and manages to meet a gentleman follows him outside and while he thinks she's there to service the men, he says some very provocative things in her virgin ears. They soon realize their mistake and she ends up enlisting his help when she discovers her cousin has been kidnapped.

The masked gentleman turns out to be Robin Blackthorn. He is looked down on society because he is a bastard even though he has the money to buy most of the people that treat him like that. But he is fascinated with Regina, and her attributes. Even though he knows it's foolish and that she should stay away from her because her father would never approve of him courting her, after all she should be fishing for an Earl at least, he can't stay away. And if that means he has to help her find her cousin then so be it.

At the end of the day the human trafficking organization that took her hits a bit close to home, but I had figured that out pretty quickly.

One thing I will tell you I truly enjoyed about this book was the humor and the banter between Puck and Regina. Their personalities truly matched.

I am intrigued about Black Jack. I must find out more about this brother. Is his book next? "

This book was a disappointment. The hero is supposedly a rake who falls in love with the heroine instantly, which is very hard to believe. The plot is that the heroine's cousin has been abducted and the hero has decided to develop this scheme to help find her. In the mean time while she is so distraught over her cousin's disappearance.... the heroine finds herself falling in love and into the bed of the hero. I did not believe that she was really worried about her cousins' abduction. One minute she was in tears, the next she was seducing the hero.
The plot was so predictable that I figured it out within the first fifty pages of the book and had to wait until the characters figured it out as well. The h/h do not really have romantic chemistry, such a lack of it I found myself skipping through the sex scenes...and there are very few in this book. I was bored stiff with the over the top schemes and barely made it to the end. Actually I didn't read the last few pages. BORING!!!!!!

I read the first book from the Blackthorn Brothers series, The Taming of the Rake, and loved it! So I had to continue reading this series, and I'm not disappointed :P

Robin Puck Blackthorn is the sexy brother. Gorgeous, fun and just relaxed, he wants to be accepted in the London society as he was accepted in France. Of course, he's going to need a little help. But what he doesn't need is to fall in love with beautiful and young Regina.

Regina is young and doesn't feel very beautiful. Her own cousin tell her she looks like she's ready. She knows her father is going to sell her to someone with a title, but she wish to enjoy at least one night without anyone knowing it's her. So when her cousin invites her to a masked dance, she's in. But she wasn't her cousin to be abducting and Puck, a gorgeous man, to help her find her.

I really liked this romance. Puck and Regina where made for each other, and they knew it without any doubt. Regina was very mature and Puck, much older than her, was a little bit childish but fun. The only obstacle was Regina's father, who was a very bad man. I was kind of scared of him, I don't know how Regina and her mother could live with him.

I think it was a little bit obvious who was guilty from Regina's cousin abduction. But still, I wasn't sure the author was going to involve family in this mess. Still, it was interesting and I loved the new characters.

Overall, I can't wait to read the next book, Much Ado About Rogues. Puck's older brother, Jack, seems to be so dark!

Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn is the youngest of the Blackthorn Brothers. Having been blessed, or cursed with this Shakespearean name by his actress mother, he is, of course, generally called 'Puck'. As one of the Blackthorn bastards, he has felt compelled to live up to the 'Trickster' aspects of his Puckish nickname, but in A Midsummer Night's Sin, the second Blackthorn Brothers book by Kasey Michaels, both the dark and light sides of Puck's nature are required in order to bring this complex but ultimately rewarding historical romance to its delightful final curtain.

Puck has returned to England in order to find out what his middle brother Jack, not so fondly known as Black Jack, is up to. In the first book in the series, The Taming of the Rake (see review), oldest brother Beau got married, and it was revealed that second son Jack, instead of being quite as black as his nickname would suggest, is actually some kind of secret operative for the government. Puck wants to learn what Jack is up to, and possibly get Jack to mend fences with their father.

Mostly, Puck just wants in on whatever adventure Jack is having.

Regina Hackett thought that she and her cousin Miranda were headed to a ball, properly escorted by Miranda's mother. But Miranda re-arranged all the plans so that the young ladies were instead off for a masked ball at the considerably less reputable, actually quite scandalous, Lady Fortescue's.

Puck is attending the masquerade in his pursuit of an entree into the lower echelons of the ton, and in his pursuit of his brother's confederates. But he is captivated by the sight of Regina Hackett, and, believing her one of the ladies hired for the evening's entertainment, entices her into the garden for a kiss. Regina takes advantage of the anonymity of her mask to experience the beginnings of a flirtation, but when Puck details all of the naughty things he wants to do with her, in French, and starts acting on that list, her shaky innocent withdrawal finally convinces him that she is not what he assumed her to be.

But her cousin Miranda, petite and blonde, has been kidnapped from the masked ball. And when Regina searches desperately for her, she runs headlong into Puck. He is the only possible source of help, and he did act almost honorably, at least once convinced of her innocence. Puck and his coachman determine that Miranda was taken against her will; she did not leave for an assignation. Then Regina and Puck fabricate a story that will cover up the girls' departure from their original schedule.

Puck's and Regina's association should have ended there. Miranda's father should have called out the Bow Street Runners, and a search for the missing girl should have begun immediately. But the situation is much more complicated than it appears.

Miranda is not the first petite blonde young woman to be kidnapped in London. She is one of more than two dozen such women. Many have been prostitutes, but some are from extremely well-connected families. Jack and his confederates are on the case on behalf of the government. This isn't just a matter of kidnapping, "white slavery" is suspected, but no one has been able to determine who the ringleaders are.

But now that her cousin has been kidnapped, Regina feels compelled to help Puck find the culprits, even if her father turns out to be one of them.

But why should Regina even suspect her father? At first, Reginald Hackett seems like just another tyrannical father, a stock character in any romance, if a bit more menacing than most. So what if his father effectively "bought" Regina's mother, and her title, as a way of bringing his merchant family up in the world? He's not the first to do so. But Lady Letitia Hackett lives in abject terror of her husband, and so does the rest of his household.

When he demands that the Bow Street Runners he finances go to Gretna Green in search of Miranda, even though Reginald admits that he knows she did not elope, he raises suspicions in many minds.

Soon, Regina and her mother are hiding out from her father in a variety of Puck's households in London, while Puck, Regina and Jack's men search for the missing women. But if her father does turn out to be the kidnapper, can Regina possibly have a future when he is caught, even with one of the infamous Blackthorn bastards?

Escape Rating A: This should have been a light, frothy romance, and it wasn't. But it was all the better for it. Regina is a woman who finds amazing depths of courage, in order to keep hunting for her cousin. Puck reminds me of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He looks and acts like a complete lightweight, up until the point where he totally isn't.

The "white slavery" plot is one that was a staple of penny-dreadfuls, and it was used here to great effect. It made for an appropriately dark and dastardly villain and gave this story a breakneck pace as the search for Miranda and the other girls ran towards its deadline.

I can't wait for Jack's book! Much Ado About Rogues should be out in March 2012. Not soon enough. Not at all!

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SIN is the second book in the A Blackhorn Brothers series and is about the second brother. Puck is actually the youngest which makes sense in a lot of ways considering his outlook on life. No matter the situation he sees the best in life and enjoys it. That's an attitude that a lot of us should strive for.

One thing that I really like about Ms. Michael's romances is her heroines. None of them seem to the 'norm' for young ladies of that time period and Regina is no exception. She is over-educated for the time, brave, stubborn and willing to disregard society's strictures if needed. In other words, someone that I could really relate too. Her and Puck are just perfect together.

This is the second book of Ms. Michael's that I have had the pleasure to read and I have to say that I am sold on the author. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SIN has wonderfully developed characters, snappy dialogue, taut pacing and an interesting story line. What more could a person want?

I recommend this book to any lovers of historical romance and rate it a 4.