Customer Reviews

Promise of Pleasure (Berkley Sensation)

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I've never ever bothered with writing a review but after reading this trash, I wish I'd rather wasted my time watching paint dry!!! yeah, this book is that bad. I'd give it a big fat zero if I could!! Don't read it even if someone pays you to to it!!!.... . I've read other works of miss Holt & though they weren't all 5 star materials,they weren't this bad either. The heroine is a dumb twit with her self respect & pride scale dipping in the minus & the hero is probably the most asinine, insensitive & callous jerk of a character ever created in my opinion. I'm really, really mad... can you tell??? :))) I'm a very, very selective reader & i usually read all the the reviews of a book before i plan to read & i do pay particular attention to the 2 & 3 stars but for some reason i got caught unaware with this this.
Miss Holt, do us all a favor... if you plan on writing within this genre & if you can't come up with strong central character with some self worth & pride that the readers can identify with most of the time then you should cease writing & take up another hobby.

Well guess I'm not alone in thinking this sucked. The heroine in this book consistently and repeatedly allows the hero to treat her like dirt. She needs to get a back bone and tell him were to go. When you start hoping they don't get together in the end you know a romance is in trouble. He pushes himself on her, tells her he doesn't love her, is going to follow through and marry her sister after committing to marrying her, asks her to be his mistress and thinks this is a good solution, AND STILL SHE FORGIVES HIM! Just write DOORMAT across her forhead and be done with it! While your at it write A--H---e across his. Not this author's best work.

I thought the book was great. Some people have an issue with the hero being engaged to the heroine's sister. But ... it is an ARRANGED marriage. Felicity only wants his title. There is no illusion of "love". He wants her money.

The hero is a bastard, but admits it from the start. I think in order to enjoy Cheryl Holt you can't take everything the characters do so seriously. The hero is usually over the top and so are the villains. But that's what makes her books so entertaining.

In defense of the bastard hero, his dilemma is a very practical one. If he married Felicity, his financial problems would be solved. In real life, this exact outcome would be more realistic than marrying a penniless "spinster".

I do agree the heroine could have had more of a backbone. It's always fun to read a bold and daring heroine get even on a rake of a hero. That may be what's missing. The "get even" part.

Horrible book!!! The hero, if you want to call him that, had no redeeming qualities at all. He is a self absorbed a**, all he cares about is taking care of his lust he has for Mary who is an innocent and has a hard life and is looking for someone to love her. Now Mary has no back bone what so ever, at first you feel bad for her and are on her side. But after one thing after another you lose respect for her.

In one of Cheryl's older books the romance between Cassandra and Paxton would have been followed up in the next book in the series. But for years now Cheryl has been doing stand alone books with titles that would make one think the books are linked when they are not or loosely linked. I liked her older stuff much better. I gave up on her for a while but thought I would give this book a shot. It is closer to the old Holt books but once again I noticed the next book coming out is a stand alone again. I really enjoy starting to get to know a secondary character and having the next book about them. If I am investing my time in reading and caring about characters I like to see them again. Cheryl used to have this great talent of turning bad guys into the hero or heroine in her books I miss that too. Oh well - I guess there are other authors out there now that I read before her because I feel like she won't give her fans what they really want - whether she is following her editors dictates or not. Otherwise this is a good book - however because she tries to add two romances to the book both end up lacking.

Cheryl Holt's latest novel, Promise of Pleasure, is a Cinderella tale with a bit of a twist. The Prince in this fairy tale in many ways is not princely but the heroine is very much like the original Cinderella, overworked and underappreciated by her family.

Mary Barnes is almost a servant in her own home; her mother and one of her step sisters treat her disdainfully. Mary has hopes of marrying a neighbor, Harold, and escaping her demanding family. Problem is Harold has not cut the apron strings with his mother so poor Mary is stuck waiting until the he comes to his senses.

Mary has two step sisters, Felicity is spoiled and petty and searching for a titled husband and the other sister is a widow who became withdrawn after her marriage. Mary's step-mother invites very, very bad boy Viscount Jordan Winthrop to the house with the sole purpose of seeing him marry Felicity.

Jordan is broke and totally irreverent; he brings his mistress and wastrel friend with him to Mary's home. Jordan needs the money since he is essentially cut off from his family. He is prepared to marry the immature Felicity but he is quite attracted to lovely Mary, who initially despises him because of his self-centered nature.

Jordan is relentless in his pursuit of Mary, she resists his overtures quite vehemently at first. In her hopes to finally get Harold to marry her, she uses a supposed magic potion but feels that its affects fall upon Jordan instead of Harold.

All the characters are bigger than life in this novel and at times this works well (this is true for Mary's "godmother" and for Mary's character too) and other times it just seemed over the top. The baddies in this book are really bad, manipulative with no redeeming qualities at all. Hero Jordan has a terrible case of ennui and he is way too selfish. He really has a hard time seeing any one else's point of view. To his credit he does quickly view Mary as more than a glorified servant. He chases her because she runs and I felt that this is what sparked his interest in her much more than Mary's kind nature. Their romance is very passionate and Mary succumbs rather quickly to him, perhaps too quickly especially in light of the fact that she halted his earlier advances with a sharp tongue and she knows the plans her step-mother has for him and Felicity.

Also in this novel is a secondary romance between Mary's other sister, Cassandra, and Jordan's friend. Their romance needed at least fifty more pages, the set up is good but I wanted more conversations and interaction between these two interesting people. Their relationship felt rushed and with their backgrounds and guarded natures, they were the more intriguing couple.

Ms Holt ends this novel in her typical fashion, the good guys win and the bad ones have to face the consequences of their misdeeds. Was it my favorite book by Cheryl Holt, no, but the fairy tale aspect was nice and Ms. Holt does know how to write a steamy scene. Also the heroine was likeable although way too naïve and this does not stand her in good stead with most of the characters who are always looking to take advantage of her good nature.

In 1814 in rural England twenty five year old Mary Barnes is treated with disdain by her half sister eighteen years old spoiled Felicity who abuses her as a poor relation servant. Mary's widowed stepmother Victoria is as horrific towards her; only widow step-sister Cassandra does not mistreat her. Wastrel Viscount Jordan Winthrop is staying at Barnes Manor as he is expected to propose to Felicity for her money; while Mary has waited a decade for her neighbor Harold Talbot to marry her.

Jordan meets Mary and assumes she is a servant. He flirts with her and tells her she is pretty. She later sees him making love with Lauretta. She flees from him, but he watches her in the woods where she kisses Henry who is upset by her boldness; she also is upset as she felt nothing.

Victoria tells him who Mary he is, which stuns him as he know he treated her shabbily. He kisses Mary and tells her he wants to do it again. Peddler Philippe Dubois sells her the Spinster's Cure with the understanding she not pay until it proves successful by getting her true love to marry her. She drinks the potion ready for Harold to appear, but Jordan does instead. Desperate after another nasty incident with Felicity, Mary puts potion in his wine. That night he sneaks in her room. Soon they are having a tryst. Felicity, Victoria and Jordan's mistress Lauretta try to end the relationship between the lovers.

The first Spinster's Cure is a fun adult version of Cinderella with a strong lead couple and a solid support cast who with several neat twists seem to have stepped out of the fairy tale into the Regency sub-genre. Ironically, the wicked stepmother and stepsister mirror the fairy tale, but neither possesses any redeeming qualities while Philippe is a superb spin on the fairy godmother. Fans will enjoy this fine Regency romance as Jordan must choose between love and money.

Harriet Klausner