Promise of Pleasure (Berkley Sensation) [Mass Market Paperback]

Cheryl Holt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2010 | Series: Berkley Sensation

Secret desires. Forbidden fruit. Untapped passion.

No sooner does Mary Barnes, yet to be touched by a man, drink a secret elixir than a handsome and mysterious stranger walks into her life. But Mary wonders if the scoundrel's growing passion is the result of just a love tonic, or the real thing.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Berkley; Original edition (April 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425235084
• ISBN-13: 978-0425235089
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #686,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

CHERYL HOLT is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. She is hailed as the undisputed "Queen" of erotic romance, as well as the international "Queen of Villains". She has numerous national writing awards to her credit and is particularly proud to have been named "Best Storyteller of the Year" by Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine. The magazine also selected her as one of the "Top Twenty-Five Erotic Authors of All Time".

She lives and writes in Los Angeles, where her teenage son is pursuing his dream of becoming a Hollywood movie star.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What happened!, April 28, 2010

By 

ddonald - See all my reviews

This review is from: Promise of Pleasure (Berkley Sensation) (Mass Market Paperback)

OK who abducted Cheryl Holt and can you please release her. Ms Holt has always been one of my favorite authors and I have read most of her books. "Promise of Pleasure" fails to carry two proposed details...promise and pleasure. To the reader that is. It reads like a children's novel with a few, and I mean very few sexualized situations with PG ratings. Not that sex is everything but if you are going to add it, do it right!

A fortune hunting amazingly obtuse ariosto male visits a place they call the "Kingdom" to meet and marry a snobby step sister for her money. While on this trip he also brings his "rake" best friend, and his mistress to keep him company for the month they will be there.

The rotten step sister is not aware that the woman he has with him is his mistress and after finding out tells him she won't have him if he carries on his liaison after they are married. He proceeds to insist he will do whatever he likes and has no intention of being with her after their first night together. He doesn't understand her and says that she is "stupider" than he thought. Her word not mine...is stupider a word?

I could have written this book and as you read this review you will well understand how bad that would be! This Spring offers so many great new books so pick up one of those and give "Promise of Pleasure" a pass.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 1s book in trilogy of where and a few drops from a magical elixir -- leads to romance, May 24, 2010

By 

cb (Minot, ND) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Promise of Pleasure (Berkley Sensation) (Mass Market Paperback)

Cheryl Holt books in the past were very edgy Historical erotic Romance where the evil was disturbingly VERY evil and good always won. I could not put this book down because I was waiting for the evil to emerge but it wasn't to her normal standards.

The concept was that Mary Barnes is Cinderella like character - evil stepmother and stepsister. Viscount Jordan Winthrop needs to marry an heiress and somehow the oldest child of the rich deceased father is penniless. Jordan and Mary start having an affair - while he plans to marry her younger evil step-sister.

I could not put it down - great writing - not quite what I was expecting though --- looking forward to Taste of Temptation (Berkley Sensation) due out June 2010.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Pleasurable at all, May 7, 2010

By 

Paula "RomanceBK" (New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Promise of Pleasure (Berkley Sensation) (Mass Market Paperback)

Promise of Pleasure was more like promise of disappointment, desperation, boredom. You name it anything, but pleasure. I couldn't wait to read this book, because I usually enjoy reading Cheryl Holt's books, but this was like someone else wrote this or it was a rushed project. The heroine, if you can call her that, was a simpering, weak, and a simpleton without a backbone. She looked to Jordan, the hero, to save her/ "change her life." In one scene she begs Jordan to choose her over her sister, even to love her. Who does that? Felicity the "evil" step-sister was portrayed as selfish and self absorbed. She had more of a backbone than Mary and stood up for herself in not accepting Jordan as the cheating scumbag he is. Mary was not only weak, but sneaky and not likeable at all. Bottom line she was having sex with her sister's fiance. No matter how much Holt tried to drum up sympathy for Mary, she was the one who was selfish in all this.

Jordan was just as bad. There was no redeeming qualities to this man. Boo hoo your father doesn't like you, so I am going to be a complete a$*. I didn't understand why Mary fell in love with him. All I can see is she fell in love with having sex not Jordan.