Seducing an Angel [With Earbuds] (Playaway Adult Fiction) [Preloaded Digital Audio Player]

Mary Balogh (Author), Anne T. Flosnik (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2009 | Series: Playaway Adult Fiction

In a time unlike any other, a family you’ll never forget . . . Meet the Huxtables - three headstrong sisters and their dashing brother - each searching for love that’s always a shocking indiscretion away. . . . In her magnificent novel, New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh sweeps us into a world of scandal and intrigue - glittering Regency England - and introduces the youngest Huxtable: Stephen, the only son. Here Stephen will risk his reputation and his heart as he enters a scandalous liaison with the infamous beauty intent on seduction. But when passion turns the tables on them both, who can say who has seduced whom? He must be wealthy, wellborn, and want her more than he wants any other woman. Those are the conditions that must be met by the man Cassandra Belmont chooses for her lover. Marriage is out of the question for the destitute widow who stands accused of murdering her husband and must now barter her beauty in order to survive. With seduction in mind, she sets her sights on Stephen Huxtable, the irresistibly attractive Earl of Merton and London’s most eligible bachelor. But Stephen’s first intriguing glimpse of the mysterious, alluring Lady Paget convinces him that he has found the ideal woman to share his bed. There is only one caveat. This relationship fueled by mutual pleasure must be on his terms. As the two warily circle each other in a sensual dance of attack and retreat, a single night of passion alters all the rules. Cassandra, whose reputation is already in tatters, is now in danger of losing the one thing she vowed never to give. And Stephen, who wants Cassandra more than he has ever wanted any woman, won’t rest until she has surrendered everything - not as his mistress - but as his lover and wife.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Balogh continues her chronicle of the Huxtable family in this so-so Regency. Stephen Huxtable, earl of Merton, is dashing, wealthy and unattached, which makes him a juicy target for widow Cassandra Belmont, but she soon learns that heartless seduction is not as easy as she'd hoped. As Stephen begins to probe her past, they find themselves actually falling in love. Surprisingly for a Regency romance, Balogh tackles themes like alcoholism, domestic violence, miscarriage and female independence. Cassandra's mistrust and vulnerability is understandable, and Stephen is a surprisingly mild, modern type who seems miscast as a Regency hero. While their conflict is believable—she fears a loss of freedom, he fears that she will never be able to trust—the conclusion feels overly contrived. Fans of the series will enjoy, though genre purists may find something off about the modern sensibilities. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Cassandra Belmont has reached a decision: she is going to become a courtesan. Now all she has to do is select the right (incredibly wealthy) patron, which may be a bit difficult since the rumor that Cassandra took an ax to her late husband is still busily circulating throughout the ton. Fortunately, dazzling and rich Stephen Huxtable, the Earl of Merton, is one of the few people in London who completely dismisses the idea that Cassandra could be a murderess. Getting Stephen to fall in love with her proves to be ridiculously easy, but the one thing Cassandra hasn’t counted on is that her new lover might demand more from her than a simple business arrangement. With her inimitable, brilliantly nuanced sense of characterization, elegantly sensual style, and droll wit, best-seller Balogh continues to set the standard to which all other Regency historical writers aspire while delivering another addictively readable addition to her Huxtable family series. --John Charles --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Preloaded Digital Audio Player
• Publisher: Playaway (June 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608478114
• ISBN-13: 978-1608478118
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,775,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Balogh is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Slightly novels: Slightly Married, Slightly Wicked, Slightly Scandalous, Slightly Tempted, Slightly Sinful, and Slightly Dangerous, as well as the romances No Man's Mistress, More than a Mistress, and One Night for Love. She is also the author of Simply Love, Simply Unforgettable, Simply Magic, and Simply Perfect, her dazzling quartet of novels set at Miss Martin's School for Girls. A former teacher herself, she grew up in Wales and now lives in Canada.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a book about hope, May 20, 2009

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Seducing an Angel (Hardcover)

If you really stop to look at it, all four of the Huxtable books are about hope. The salient feature of the four Huxtable siblings is that they all believe in love, not just the kind that often fills romance novels, but the kind that makes hard choices and lives with the consequences because, as Meg says in the third book, "That's what love does when it must."

In order to create a plot, of course, Mary Balogh has to pair these realistic yet determined optimists with people who have been betrayed by love. It is a testament to her skill as a writer that she does so in a way that is believable. And all four of the love interests are already gritty, strong, loving people. They just don't realize it. They are all survivors, however, and Cassandra is like Duncan (in At Last Comes Love) in that she knows she loves the people she loves. She just has been so badly hurt that she doesn't believe she can risk being married ever again.

And so she sets out to protect the people she does love in the only way she knows how, which leads her to seduce Stephen, Earl of Merton. The youngest Huxtable is stronger than she knows, and considerably more than she allows herself to believe she deserves. They sleep together too soon, and they both know it, on some level. Then they spend the rest of the book going back and fighting through the detritus of Cassandra's past to find their way to loving one another.

It's a very good book. Some of the subplots are tied up too easily (I wanted to punch Cassandra's brother myself, and while her restraint when he finally showed up again was useful in teaching her something about herself, his willingness to slide back into his old role without a more credible apology left me angry at him).

Aside from the Epilogue (which had me in tears, I admit), the book ends in a way very similar to how the first book (First Comes Marriage) starts, with Constantine in the family graveyard, talking to his dead brother. This full-circle treatment makes it very clear how interconnected the stories are. Unlike some of her other series, where Mary Balogh seems to just be working her way through a collection of characters, all of whom deserve to have their own happy endings, this collection of books seems to be a more coherent series, with a larger message about love, and hope, and human resilience.

I have high hopes for Constantine's story, whenever it comes. In the meantime, these four books about the Huxtable siblings will give me plenty of rereading pleasure.

I do think that it's worth reading these four books in order.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All together are better than any single title in the quartet separately, May 21, 2009

By 

Virginia E. Demarce "veasleyd" (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seducing an Angel (Hardcover)

Each of the books in the Huxtable quartet improves the series, in that each gives further depth to the characters as they appeared in the earlier books. At Last Comes Love, for example, explained the reason for some of Meg's attitudes and actions that just appeared to be excessively annoying in the first two titles of the series.

Stephen is a wonderful hero. I'm so tired of tortured, angsty, heroes. It's wonderful to find one who's deepest levels are the same as what appears on the surface, only more so.

I'd give this title an A-. It would be an A (there were a couple of places where I had tears in my elderly eyes) except for some of the vocabulary.

Over the more-than-a-quarter-century that I've been reading Balogh's regencies, I've noticed that she has an increasing tendency to have the protagonists think to themselves in modern psychobabble ("victim mentality" anyone?).

It's not that people in the regency era wouldn't have experienced these feelings and meditated about them. It's just that they wouldn't have used these words to the purpose, so there's the reason for the point off.

Otherwise, I'm anxiously awaiting the 5th book (Constantine Huxtable).

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad Continuity; People are Too Stupid to Live (TSTL), May 11, 2010

By 

Margaret P. "mhp2027" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seducing an Angel (Huxtable) (Mass Market Paperback)

The premise on the back cover sounds fun: a woman in desperate financial straights decides to become a mistress. The implementation is appallingly poor. The leading man struck me as a wimp and a push-over. The book reads like a rough draft. Here are some examples of the poor continuity and people who are TSTL. A word of warning: this list includes some spoilers.

(1) Lord P-- commits suicide in a room with four witnesses (his wife Lady P--, his younger son W--, a servant M--, and Lady P--'s companion A--) by shooting himself in the chest. People look at Lord P--'s corpse and conclude that that his wife murdered him by hitting him in the head with an axe, and yet they do not call the constable. None of the witnesses say anything that would contradict the "murdered by his wife with an axe" story.

(2) Lord P--'s eldest son, G--, likewise believes the "murderd by his wife with an axe" story. He doesn't talk to the witnesses (including his brother, who may or may not have attended the funeral). G-- is appalled that Lady P-- got away with murder but likewise doesn't call the constable like a sensible person would..instead he forces her to agree to give up her jewelry, income, and houses. Lady P-- agrees to this because the constable and judges in her world are so TSTL that she is convinced they would look at the evidence, talk to the witnesses, and find her guilty.

(3) M-- is an unmarried mom with a small child for the majority of the book. Toward the end, she is suddenly married, to W--, and has been since before Lord P--'s death. No explanation is given; this appears to simply be bad continuity. If you accept the "married" assumption, then none of M--'s or W--'s actions throughout the book make any sense whatsoever.

(4) W-- vanishes into thin air immediately following his father's death, then appears toward the end of the book "returning from Canada". No one thinks it odd that he abandoned his wife and small child to starve. No one thinks it odd that neither W-- nor M-- mentioned that they were married.

(5) When W-- says that Lord P-- had committed suicide, and everyone (including G--) immediately believes him. G-- does not think it strange that W-- failed to mention this earlier.

(6) When lady P-- is thrown into the street with no means of support, she rents an expensive house (fully furnished) in London, taking A-- and M-- with her. Lady P-- at that point has enough money for a down payment, and to live comfortably for quite some time. All three women are supposedly going to "search for jobs", but this apparently does not include a M-- looking for another job as a servant (her previous job) nor A-- looking for a job as a companion/governess (her previous job); and no explanation is given why accused murderer Lady P-- thinks that someone would hire her for a prestigous job that could pay for the fancy town house.

(7) The first thing Lady P-- does in the novel is to go to a fancy ball, being held by Lord S--. Lord S-- has a scandelous past that he is trying to convince people to forget for the sake of his new wife. So when accused murderer Lady P-- shows up uninvited, Lord S-- dances with her, thus further tarnishing his reputation.

(8) Lady P-- and her soon to be lover Earl M-- openly leave the ball together in his coach (no chaperone), go to her house, and spend the night. Earl M-- leaves in the morning well past the point when many neighbors and servants are up and about. Despite this and other obvious behavior, no one in London notices that Lady P-- is Earl M--'s mistress.

(9) Lord P-- beats Lady P-- so badly that she miscarries all four of her pregnancies. Yet when she hears a woman scream in the same room as Lord P--, Lady P-- runs toward the room.

(10) When Lord P-- finds out that his son W-- married a servant (M--), he is so upset that he tries to murder either M-- or W-- (unclear to me). When W-- blocks the shot, Lord P-- commits suicide. This makes no sense, and no reason is ever given.

Save your money!