Customer Reviews

Ritual Sins

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was my first Anne Stuart book. I was riveted as I read the darkest romance novel I have EVER read. It was fantastic reading! Stuart is such a unusual romance writer. She invents a hero like I have never read - not even close to the other heroes I have read in romance novels.

Ritual Sins' hero, Luke, is a real bad boy. He is a con artist - truly! You don't know how bad Luke is for the majority of the book. He is an extremely dominant and alpha male. Luke is the leader of a cult. Visions of Jim Jones swirl in your head. He is so charismatic that you don't know if you will be able to trust him - if ever. He has easily taken in his followers and all of them love him dearly.

Rachael is a heroine who is hard to like. Her character could have been a little kinder for my tastes. But - if a real, live woman was in Rachael's shoes - I don't think she would have been kind or tolerant of Luke either. Her estranged mother has just died and left over twelve million dollars, Rachael's inheritance, to Luke's organization (cult), The Foundation of Being. Rachael is enraged and suspects foul play. Her mother has never been kind to her or given her love. Much of the plot revolves around Rachael's empty life, her cold treatment of the world, and the results of having a mother that really cared little for you. Rachael doesn't like to be touched, hates men, and is frigid. There are reasons in her background for her inhibitions. Without giving the plot away, I can safely say, she is a wreck of a person.

Luke, on the other hand, truly seems to know a lot about living a quality life. He can see most of Rachael's weaknesses within minutes of meeting her. He has her pegged right and it scares her badly. Rachael considers Luke to be a master manipulator - which he really is. It is such a dire threat for him to so easily determine her most secret hurts, defensive mechanisms, and huge vulnerability.

Rachael and Luke first encounter each other when Rachael arrives at The Foundation of Being to investigate her mother's death. She has told the group that she may be interested in joining them. But many of them, especially Luke, know her real reason for her visit. He realizes that she wants to expose him and would love to see him dead. We all wonder who Luke really is. Once again, it would give too much away if I enlarged on this mysterious trail we, as readers, follow searching for the truth versus the scam. However, I can safely say that it is a deep and fascinating search.

Since this is a romance novel, it is also safe to say that Luke and Rachael develop a relationship against all odds. Luke makes Rachael aware from the very beginning that he wants her sexually. His speech, when with Rachael, is crude much of the time. The sensual scenes don't occur until the middle of the book but they are definitely spicy. They rate a solid 4.0 out of 5.0 (see More About Me for my rating guidelines). Stuart writes a very sexy hero who throws out sexual innuendoes right and left at Rachael.

For the first half of this book, I was very cautious, and wondered if I would truly enjoy the book. It is just SO different. When I read a new author, the first book is such a test. I can be almost tense wondering if they are going to disappoint me. This author clearly passed the new author test with flying colors. Even with the dark nature of the book, I will keep it to read again.

This is an excellent book. Stuart is masterful with such a forbidden subject. Since reading Ritual Sins, I have read five other Stuart books. Some have been good - some have been fair - but this one remains my favorite Stuart book to date. I highly recommend it.

I bought this book used as a result of a Listmania recommendation, and boy, am I glad that I did! This is a great romantic suspense story, with a strikingly original, morally ambiguous male lead character. It really pushes the envelope on what type of behavior in a hero is acceptable, and succeeds in making the reader accept it all.

Rachel Connery is a woman consumed by pain, hatred and fear - a product of her mother's constant neglect and her stepfather's abuse. Her mother recently died, but before she did she liquidated all of her assets, drained Rachel's trust fund, sold off some of Rachel's possessions, and willed everything to the Foundation of Being, a New-Age type of spiritual retreat headed up by Luke Bardell. Luke, who as a child found his mother after she committed suicide, who survived the beatings of his stepfather, who was convicted of manslaughter and served time in prison, and who has been a con man most of his life, is now running the best con of his life - a Foundation where he is viewed as virtually a messiah. Rachel suspects that the Foundation is all a sham, that the cancer deaths that have been occurring in the hospice there have had more to do with the patient's bank balance than actual illness, and has vowed to expose Luke in order to recover her lost inheritance.

The story reveals the souls of these two emotionally scarred people as they play a cat-and-mouse game with both the truth and their mutual attraction. Luke is the ultimate bad-boy hero, and Ms. Stuart has managed to make him as attractive as sin. The reader keeps waiting for him to behave in some standard heroic fashion, yet he continues to follow his own path to achieve his goals. Rachel is gradually transformed from an embittered person who just exists, to a person who actually lives.

If you can find a copy of this book, get it. It's definitely worth your time.

this is one of my favorite books by anne stuart.i really like how the characters in her books are not so black and white.nobody is perfect and we are shaped by our life experiances good and bad.
the main male character,luke bardell, has had a pretty rotten life.he is bad in a sense that he feels no guilt about manipulating people into giving him their money.he has killed to survive,but he takes no pleasure in it.rachel connery has had money but not much else.she is very bitter and out to get what she feels she deserves.they are two "broken" people who get whats coming to them in the end.its a great story with a happy ending----something we dont always get in real life.

It took me awhile to track down a used copy of this book, but after reading the reviews here, I knew it would be time well spent - and was I right! True to Anne Stuart form, this book does not disappoint. You develop a love/hate relationship with the characters, and the many twists and turns will keep you on an emotional roller coaster right up till the end. The cult angle had me questioning whether or not I would really like this book, but given the author, I should have known what the end result would be. This is one SUPER book!

Stella Connery, being of sound mind, knew what she was doing when she learned that she was dying from cancer. She changed her will, disinheriting her twenty-nine year old daughter Rachel and leaving her millions of dollars to the Foundation of Being in New Mexico. When her mother finally died and the will was read, Rachel sued, but lost because one cannot take to court a religion especially since the benefactor was mentally sound.

The Foundation's founder, con artist Luke Bardell sees the angry, frustrated and emotionally distraught Rachel as his next manipulative challenge, planning to melt and conquer her heart and soul like a Svengali. He invites her to spend some time at the Foundation. Rachel accepts because she plans to obliterate the Foundation and destroy its founder. When an immovable force meets an irresistible object and love enters the equation , bodies and souls are changed forever. However, will the relationship between Luke and Rachel metamorphoses into a lasting love or an eternal hate?

RITUAL SINS is an exciting, extremely well written relationship drama. As usually found in an Anne Stuart novel, the lead characters are not lovable, (in fact almost detestable) though very interesting, and the support cast adds much to the story line. This novel is an excellent look at the darker side of human emotions that turns Ms. Stuart's characters into some of the more realistic protagonists in fiction today. Though not for readers who enjoy escapist, up beat romances, it would be a sin for those who enjoy a realistic, very dark relationship drama, not to read RITUAL SINS.

Harriet Klausner

Rachel Connery has one mission left in her life. To bring Luke Bardell and his cult of followers down. After her mother died, Rachel learned that her mother had changed her will, leaving The Foundation of Being her inheritance of twelve million dollars. When she thinks of what her mother did, all she feels is a rage that has finally found it's outlet. When she contested the will and lost, Rachel decides a trip to The Foundation of Being will have to suffice. Learning everything about the Foundation and it's followers is the only way to expose it for the cult it is. She didn't count on her deadly attraction to Luke. She also didn't count on uncovering a conspiricy that she least expected.

Luke Bardell came from nothing and make himself into something. He feels an unwanted attraction to Rachel Connery. She wasn't at all like his usual type of woman. She was too skinny, too pale, too sour. Until he realized how much passion that she had locked inside. And he knew that he would be the one to bring it out. Luke decided that he would make her crave him and then leave her, as punishment for daring to come up against him. Then he felt as pulled to her as she felt to him and wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life in bed with her.

Ritual Sins is a book about dangerous desire and even more dangerous love. With danger lurking around every corner and desire pulsing with every breath that it taken, Luke and Rachel come together in a storm that fairly crackles with electricity. All they have to do is find a way out of the Foundation alive.

This was my second Anne Stuart novel and I was not disappointed. The characters were well developed and the storyline keeped wanting more. I read this book will communting to work. It was so good that I missed my stop and had a walk back 2 blocks. This is a book to read when you want to get away from lifes everyday troubles.

I have read Moonrise but it did nothing for me. Ritual SIns is just the opposite, it is wonderful! You cannot help but to like Luke, even the ways he handles Rachel's intimacy fears. I stayed up half the night reading this book and it will be on my keeper shelf.

Rachel Connery is understandably furious when her rich mother dies and doesn't leave her a dime. She lost in court. Now she's out for revenge. She wants to destroy Luke Bardell's Foundation of Being for seducing her mother and swindling her out of her inheritance. The entire time I was reading I was so hoping Rachel would give in to Luke's dark, sensuous appeal (his charisma radiates off the pages). But Rachel is stubborn, & intelligent, with a bottomless well of fury to fuel her resistance. Which makes it so much more thrilling when she finally does give in to the temptation. For anyone who likes bad boys (& Luke is such a GOOD bad boy), I challenge you to this: 3 minutes; give it just 3 minutes & see if you can put it down. Why only 4 stars? Read Night Fall by Anne Stuart and find out (it's darker, edgier, sexier, more disturbing -- just the way I like 'em).

Anne Stuart is the Queen of creating those dark complex alpha/gamma rogue males that are far from pure. They are sin, sex, dark and dangerous and there is just no one that does it better. Moonrise is her best, with To Love a Dark Lord and Nightfall running a closesecond . And Ritual Sins ranks right up there. I resisted this book, even knowing that I ADORE everything she writes. Something about the cult angle and him being the leader sort of turned me off, but since it was Stuart and, naturally, could not resist and boy and I glad I gave in.

It one of those itchy, dark tales she weaves like a spell, paint a very very bad boy you are unable resist, might even hate, and cannot stop falling for despite all his dirty secrets. Luke Bardell, conman, charlatan, runs a new age commune called the Foundation of Being, supposedly bilking their clients out of millions and millions of dollars. Rachael Connery's mother was just one of this victims. She willed her fortune to Luke's desert commune and then suddenly died mysteriously. Rachael is there to prove Luke murdered her for the vast fortune and to reclaim the inheritance that should have been hers. Luke knows why she came, what she wants, but that does not seem to stop him nor does it stop her from being drawn into his sinister web.

This is fiction writing at it best, and long may Stuart reign!!