5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A promising start that quickly unravels, March 1, 2007
This review is from: The Seduction (Paperback)
I've read most of Guhrke's backlist because her writing is enjoyable and her characters and plots are frequently outside of the norm. This one, however, is pretty standard, which may be the cause of its triteness.
As stated before, the plot is basic: Margaret Van Alden is an American heiress and Trevor St. James is an impoverished English lord. The bulk of the book is set in 1880s Italy, which was a great touch, and is where the two meet. Unfortunately, the weakest point of the book are Margaret and Trevor--neither are very well-developed, and while Trevor jerks down the standard historical romance hero assembly line, Margaret is incredibly immature for her age (24). The biggest and most distasteful twist, IMO, was when Margaret's father actually asks Trevor to court and seduce Margaret into marriage--and Trevor agrees to this! Granted, in romance, no protagonist is entirely irredeemable, but Trevor was supposed to be likable, or even...sexy...so his readiness to trap Margaret into marriage for his own gain left a bad taste in my mouth. The blandness of Margaret and Trevor was no doubt the reason behind the abrupt wildness of the plot, wherein the setting is overrun with Italian bandits, Margaret is kidnapped, and a cartoon villain appears, whose only purpose was to keep the plot running for twenty or so pages...By the end of the book, I didn't know what the story was because so many elements had been tossed into the plot to stretch the premise and the lackluster characters. Laura Lee Guhrke has written far, far better books, and I would recommend this to readers who like to reading an author's entire backlist.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Guhrke always a favorite, August 10, 2009
This review is from: The Seduction (Paperback)
Another good book by a very good author. She creates a nice amount of attraction and tension then puts the H/H in some interesting (however unlikely) venues and the result is an enjoyable read.
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