Customer Reviews

A Seductive Offer

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

 

 

Lord Braven finds a woman drowning and it brings back memories. He saves the woman only to discover himself having feelings he hasn't had in over a year for the rescued woman. Could she be the key to his redemption? Will his saving her save him?

Rachel Ashton's life is saved, but what kind of life is it? Her current days are spent trying to keep an abusive stepfather from hurting her mother more than he already had and trying to find a way to get her a divorce without him finding out.

When Rachel discovers that not only has her Stepfather sold her into marriage, but into marriage with a man very much like him. So she goes to Lord Braven for help. His offer is to marry her. Of course, it's just a marriage of convenience, but Lord Braven wants to save Rachel to hopefully rid the demons that torment his soul. While Rachel only wants to save her mother.

The abusive stepfather and the complicated nature of the relationship between Rachel and Lord Braven offer up an interesting story. There are some very dark moments of the story involving the abusive relationship and the lengths an abuser will go to. There is also some humor in the story so it blends with together along with great chemistry between Lord Braven and Rachel. They are both attracted to each other, but isn't this marriage simply for convenience?

I enjoyed this story much more than I thought I enjoy historical romances but many today are still rather bland in the love scene department. Usually if you want to go past the bedroom door you have to search and ask for referrals from fellow readers.
This book has great heat and is very descriptive. For romance readers who enjoy a good love scene this is one. The book has great tension between the two lovers. There are many scenes of build up before the big event. This is what good romance books are to me. They have story and the event is also as good as the story.

I look forward to reading more by this author. As if I need another author to be hooked on, but happily I add her to the ever growing piles of faves on my list:)

From the very first page of A Seductive Offer, Kathryn Smith has your attention. Wow. This book offers everything we all read romance fiction for...and makes you reluctant to get to the last page. It just doesn't get any better than this! I read a lot, and it is such a joy to have discovered a new author to follow. Very few writers draw me in deeply through their charactors' vulnerabilities, needs and passions. Smith does. I marvel at how she unravels a story so gently and wonderfully. She looks honestly at timeless issues, staying true to how people really are. Buy this book. You WON'T regret it! In fact, you'll savor every page and be sorry to reach the end. Elusive Passion, Smith's first book, is also a keeper!

I became a fan of Kathryn Smith's after reading her first book,
"Elusive Passion". When I heard she had a second book out, I bought it immediately and it didn't disappoint. I like Smith's
unique writing style, and the way she deals with contemporary issues like domestic abuse, alcoholism and suicide. Her characters, Brave and Rachel, have a sense of humour, and her protagonists seem to genuinely care for and respect one another, something that is lacking in a great deal of historical romances. There is a subplot in this novel dealing with a lost love of a friend of Brave's, and I've heard Smith is working on a book about this couple. I'm looking forward to reading it.
If you enjoy romance novels but are bored with reading the same tired plots and dialogue over and over again, this book is definitely for you.

In 1816 Yorkshire, the Earl of Braven, better known as Brave, risks his life and rescues Rachel Ashton from drowning in the nearby river. He takes her to his home Wyck's End so they both can dry off and warm up from their debacle. Rachel informs her savior that her abusive stepfather Sir Henry Westhaver plans to sell Rachel to the highest bidder by marrying her to fifty something, obese lecher Viscount Charlton.
Brave decides a marriage of convenience will save both he and Rachel. He would be removed from the dreaded available bachelor list and thus enable him to hide his broken heart received from a previous relationship. She would be free of her odious stepfather and his even more despicable groom. However, his concept goes awry as Rachel and Brave fall in love, but is he really brave enough to take the plunge into a loving relationship?

Though the story line of this Regency romance follows sub-genre lines, the humorous exchanges between the lead protagonists make the tale quite entertaining. The story line is fun as Brave and Rachel banter on anything while struggling with an attraction and a love that he never expected. Kathryn Smith provides the audience with A SEDUCTIVE OFFER of reading pleasure.

Harriet Klausner

This story has all the elements that make a fabulous story! It offers you emotions running the gamut from guilt, forgiveness, sex, and horrific marital abuse that the regency era seemed to overlook in marriages particularly when it came to the husband.

Balthazar Wycherley, the earl of Braven, was overcome by guilt over the death of his first love that he felt he had failed to prevent. Stumbling upon his neighbor, Rachel Ashton, who was drowning in a nearby river, he realizes that he may have found the one woman who can help him forgive himself and also who has given him a jolt of sexual awareness - an awareness that his grief had buried for over a year. In order to rescue Rachel and her mother from her brutal stepfather, Sir Henry Westhaver, Brave proposes a marriage of convenience. Rachel accepts, but is devastated when the mother she thinks she is saving decides to give Sir Henry another chance. The very steamy love scenes, and the comical dialogs between Brave, Rachel and his two best friends (who are being set up for the sequels in her next two books) are wonderful. It really is a great book but it didn't make me want to stay up all night to read it as her first "Elusive Passion" did.

I wanted to like this book but I felt it's characters had no real chemistry. I found Rachel boring and irritating. She seem so one dimensional, yes she loved her mother and wanted to help her at all costs but I felt when it came to Brave he seemed to get all the leftovers which were not much. I felt she had no other good qualities. She seemed so unattractive on the outside as well as on the inside.

Brave seemed a little brooding and I felt that his reason for never giving life a second chance because of something that happened years ago pretty flaky. How could anyone feel that what happened was there fault. It was just to unbelievable to me. There seemed be no openess in there relationship - one minute he snaps at her and she leaves then he says sorry then she misunderstands him and wont let him explain a overheard conversation and then she leaves.

Rachel seemed to do alot of leaving in this book with none of it being good. I mean after her wedding she gets up early and runs to her mothers house to have breakfast with her - how old is she? She seemed obsessed with staying close to her and yes I know with the situation it seemed ok but I would have hoped that the author could have gone about it more subtle I mean she was only 1 mile away. So overall this book was just lukewarm for me I would have liked the H/H to have more chemistry and more special moments together.

Lots and lots of guilt hanging around here. So much so that it got old. Smith also had a tendency to repeat phrases, the kind of repetition that a reader notices (and dislikes because it makes the writer look like she couldn't think of anything else). The book was long and sometimes slow. I'm not sure if there was too much exposition or if the exposition just wasn't compelling.

I loved the beginning of the book; Brave and Rachel getting together was well-done. The marital abuse was poignantly portrayed. And Brave's relationship with his friends was great; real friends they are, and their friendship was so much more real than Rachel's with her girlfriend.) Maybe I need to reread Julian's story after reading this one.)

This book has some wonderful moments, but it would be better had it been shortened. Three & 1/2 stars.

I have read both of Ms. Smith's novels and am now very much looking forward to the next. She seems to be improving each time. This novel revolves around Lord Braven, Balthazar Wycherley, but "Brave" to all, and Rachel Ashton, the daughter of his father's dear friend, a childhood acquaintance and the woman he is required to rescue in the first scene of the book.
The obligation to rescue her a second time, this time from an abusive Step-father and an unwanted arranged marriage, and is the process hopefully negate Brave's guilt over his inability to save another young woman from his past, brings our hero and heroine together in marriage.
Overall the book was very enjoyable. Ms. Smith allowed a real warmth and caring to develop between her characters. The story line of extreme domestic abuse brought a seriousness to the story that made our leads triumph of love seem all the more important.
Add to that the introduction of two intriguing gentlemen, at least one of which is the hero of a future Kathryn Smith novel, and the combined package is a thought provoking sensuous journey.
I recommend this novel.

Amanda Faulkner

As a fan of Kathryn Smith, I'm sorry to say that this is not her best work. Upon finishing the novel it seemed as if several plot points had been left unresolved and those that had been concluded, were done so in a manner that seemed to contradict the behaviour of the characters throughout the novel, or were completely implausible. If you can look past this however, A Seductive Offer is a pleasant enough read.

Another wonderful book by Kathryn Smith! She rates up there with Lisa Kleypas in historical romance novels. I love her books!