Customer Reviews

Sinful Pleasures: The Templar Knights

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SINFUL PLEASURES, Mary Reed McCall's second book in her Templar Knights Trilogy is a gloriously romantic story and an outstanding historical drama; based in part on true events. In this exceptionally talented author's skillful hands ~ all the adventure, excitement, political intrigue and rich pageantry of the Medieval Era, as well as, the hardships, conflicts and, life and death struggles faced by the people of that time; are seamlessly woven into the storyline and vividly brought to life for the enjoyment of the reader. Although Ms. McCall's thorough research of the medieval era is clearly reflected in the meticulous attention she pays to historical detail; the author never lets the setting overshadow the beauty of a love story that can be only described as ~ a lush, emotionally charged, sensual delight.

Traditionally, the Holy Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon was made up of proud, noble, strong and highly trained knights who had committed their lives to service and had taken vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. These valiant warrior-monks or Templar Knights, known for never surrendering in battle, were a fearsome and elite fighting force in medieval times, until ...a fateful Friday the 13th, in October of 1307. On this day King Philip the Fair of France ordered the immediate arrest and imprisonment of all Templar Knights on charges of heresy; allegations many believed was to allow the devious king to officially seize the Templar's vast wealth and assets. Thereafter, began a vile and corrupt inquisition that used horrific and despicable forms of torture to force innocent men to make false confessions of heresy; or perish by their righteous denial. Few men were able to survive hellish "questioning" by the French Inquisition...

The story begins about 6 months after the start of the Inquisition in a chateau in France; where Lady Alissende of Surry has gone to seek refuge. Lady Alissende, a lovely and wealthy young widow is being pressured by her well-meaning mother and Cousin Michael to accept a proxy marriage in order to save herself from being taken by force by her ruthless and unscrupulous Cousin Hugh, the Earl of Harwick ~ whose suit has the Kings support. After suffering in a loveless marriage for four years, Alissende would rather not marry at all, but like most women of her times, she knows she really has no way of protecting herself from the schemes, intrigues and whims of powerful men like the King or Hugh. Michael tells her she needs a strong man to defeat Hugh but it also must appear be a `reason of the heart' to pacify the King. He thinks the best choice for her husband is none other than Damien de Ashby; the man she had so foolishly and publicly rejected five years earlier ~ the man she truly never stopped loving.

Our hero, Damien de Ashby ~ fought hard to rise above his common blood and humble beginnings to become a strong, proud, and honorable knight. Once a well respected and nearly unbeatable tournament champion, known for his brave pure heart and fine face; he was nicknamed the Archangel. After being openly spurned and humiliated in front of nearly two hundred members of King Edward's court by Alissende ~ the woman who had shown him love beyond compare... but then coldly trampled his heart ~ a stunned and devastated Damien left England to devote his life the Templars. Now after spending several months in a French prison being subjected to unspeakable tortures by the Inquisition, Damien is rescued and brought back to health from the brink of death; only to be asked to marry and offer his protection to Alissende ~ the one person he thought he'd never see again in his lifetime. And the one person he's afraid he'll fall in love with all over again.

In this well-plotted story Ms. McCall unveils a riveting, breathtaking and deeply passionate love story between the physically and emotionally scarred hero, Damien and the genuinely remorseful, tender and fun-loving heroine, Alissende. As these remarkable characters rediscover their love for each other; the author treats us to beautifully written love scenes that sizzle with passion and steamy sensuality ~ most especially my favorite, the "erotic picnic" in Chapter 18.

SINFUL PLEASURES is an exquisite tale of two lovers destined to be reunited; and joined together ~ body, heart and soul ~ for all time.

This heartwarming and unforgettable story is not to be missed ~ I can't recommend it enough.

Since previous reviewers have outlined the story in "Sinful Pleasures", let me just say that Damien de Ashby reminded me of Brad Pitt in

"Legends of the Fall". Anyone who saw that movie will most likely remember the strength, force, and emotional vulnerability that Pitt's character embodied. Damien de Ashby seemed to me a mirror image of those wonderful masculine qualities.

Strong writing, great characters, a book well worth reading.

The book started off pretty good as most books do, despite the fact that I am not particularly fond of the picture of the hero on the cover (seems young and sort of soft) so I had to kind of block that out and try to picture him differently. Luckily the author manages to make him seem strong and at least in the beginning, gives him a sense of personality. The heroine also started off pretty good. I was able to get a sense of who she was. However, the author's phrasing was inconsistent. Good at times but very contrived at others. When she was on though, she was reminiscent of Marsha Canham or Kathleen Woodiwiss. But then it started to get a bit irritating. The way both the hero and heroine could barely contain themselves through the charade of a wedding I thought, was sort of ridiculous. This is a Templar Knight who had been highly trained and who had withstood torture for a year! And now he can barely control himself just looking at the heroine? Ok. Catch me in the right mood and I'll fall for anything... The author spends to much time, pages and pages on how the heroine drove the hero to complete distraction where he could think of nothing else. This was a bit much for me. I mean I got the point after the first few paragraphs. You really have to wonder how he was ever able to stay celibate while a Templar. And I also did not like the fact that the book started out with them reuniting from five years ago. It was like reading a sequel when you had not read the first book yet. She tells you about it in retrospect but you don't get to read it as it happens. You really don't get the details of why the heroine rejected him until later on in the book. When an author skips ahead and then tells you about what happened in past tense, well this has always been a pet peeve for me and this author does that a lot. Another thing that bothered me was the way all the characters and circumstance were as expected or happened as expected. The very definition of contrived. An example would be the confrontation in the practice yard with one of the men the hero was training. The way in which the author portrayed this guy as a typical bully and then did a total about face after the sparring fight. This was a bit pretentious to me. I found myself skimming over pages because nothing interesting was going on besides the hero's barely uncontrollable lust. And this got old quickly. However it started to get interesting again when the bad guy showed up. But he was kind of typical and predictable too though. I began to notice that when the story started to become more interesting, the skill of the actual writing seems to suffer somewhat. It was sort of like the author got caught up in the action of what was going on with the tournament and all, and then seem to sacrifice creativity, prose and depth. Another thing was that even though this is a book on medieval romance about a Templar Knight, there really isn't much history here. I mean there just wasn't much of a story surrounding the romance. I guess that is a matter of taste though. Some people like the emphasis of a historical romance to be on the romance and I prefer that the history, time, place and atmosphere play a prominent albeit natural part of the romance. When I think of books like "On a Highland Shore, Clandara and Highland Rose with its rich history and highly developed main and secondary characters... I don't know. I just don't get that from this book. Good but just not one I would read again.

Years ago, when she was young and under her family's thumb, Lady Alissande jilted her lover, Sir Damien de Ashby, who was a champion of the tournaments but nevertheless a man of low birth. She married an older man, an earl chosen by her parents, and suffered through a terrible marriage.

Now her cousin, an impoverished earl, has caused the death of her husband with the intention of taking Alissande for a wife and thus solving his money woes. He is a brutal unscrupulous man whom Alissande hates and fears. The solution to the threat comes from Father Michael, Alissande's cousin, who is also the brother of the evil earl. He suggests she marry her old flame, Damien, and now her mother is all for it (there was a problem here, but I decided to suspend my disbelief.)

Damien, after Alissande jilted him publicly years ago, went and joined the Templar Brotherhood, fought in the Holy Land, and was arrested by the Inquisition along with his brethren when the King of France charged the Templars with heresy (a very interesting period in history that was somewhat overlooked in this book.) He is undergoing torture and is hopeless. But Father Michael arranges Damien's escape, along with a proxy marriage to Alissande and a false Writ of Absolution from the Inquisition. Damien has no idea who helped him, except that it is a lady who needs a husband and protector. He takes a few months to heal somewhere before coming to his bride.

When Damien and Alissande finally meet sparks fly. He is still not over her old betrayal. She still loves him. He agrees to become her supposed husband for 6 months and make sure she will never be harassed by her cousin again. (Once again the logic was flawed here. How will Alissande remain safe after the marriage is annulled and Damien leaves for Scotland at the end of the 6 months? They keep talking about her taking a future husband that will be good to her. Okay, how do we know this anonymous future husband will be good to her? Once again, I decided to ignore my disbelief because the premise was very gripping.)

Damien and Alissande supposedly get married and now have to live together as husband and wife, including sharing a room and a bed. Damien, because he plans to leave shortly and because he is still angry, makes the decision not to be intimate with Alissande, although we know that she still wants him.

I was looking forward to seeing these two sharing a room and a bed with all the tension crackling between them, and at the beginning sparks did fly and I was hooked by the story. But then, maybe because the author didn't know how to keep the tension high without opening the floodgates of desire, she jumped forward two weeks in the story!

I was very disappointed at this point. And the "telling" instead of "showing" continued from here to the end of the book. There were really good twists and turns, like when Damien decides to teach her self-defense skills and flirts and caresses her while instructing her, but the author didn't show these scenes to us!!! She just told us about it later, which took out a lot of the fun for me. When they do get together, it is done very smoothly and although the sex is hot the whole episode is done very mildly.

Alissande and Damien are both lovable characters, and the story is really good, but it is not a 5 star read. Too many glossing over with narrations instead of showing us the juicy parts, and too many problems in the logical development of the story that don't add up. In my opinion, a 3.5 star book.

SINFUL PLEASURES is the second in Mary Reed McCall's "The Templar Knights series" and tells the story of Sir Damien de Ashby. Sir Damien was a Templar Knight within the Brotherhood's most elite circle of warriors and that distinction put him in Hell . . . courtesy of the French Inquisition. His only salvation . . . the woman who once spurned him.

Once, not so long ago, Lady Alissende de Montague and Sir Damien de Ashby were lovers; yet something dreadful happened! Something that was so hurtful . . . so horrendous that it totally devastated the young lovers. What was so appalling? Very simply . . . Alissende de Montague rejected Damien de Ashby! She passed him up in front of the entire English court. Aloofly, Lady Alissende de Montague turned her back and had walked away! And Damien . . .? He rode off and joined the Templar Knights.

Time slipped away, fate intervened, and they are reunited!

Her Damien, her sweet and gentle Damien, the very man who had once promised her - death itself would not have the power to come between them - now stood before her and she felt his hatred. Alissende had hoped time would heal Damien's wounds and mend his humiliation, but she was wrong! Still, how great was his hate? Was it great enough that he would not honor their proxy marriage?

Sir Damien de Ashby was now a powerful warrior, who knew well his own worth, and now Lady Alissende of Surrey needed him! Today his estranged lover needed him! She needed a husband and a protector! Five years ago, the woman thought nothing of turning the tables and sending him straight to Hell. But on that fateful day, Damien vowed he would never again accept that kind of treatment . . . willingly! And now Lady Alissende, with her noble blood and her solid pedigree breeding needed him! Five years ago, she thought herself too far above him to consider his attention and now . . .

Reviewer's Comments:

In my realm of romance reading, Mary Reed McCall is a new author. In fact, SINFUL PLEASURES is my first time into this author's world; however, complete satisfaction, in SINFUL PLEASURES, was not to be found! A good romance story must have something to draw the reader and encourage the read. Whether it is heartfelt poignancy or remarkable secondary characters, the story MUST have something and sadly, SINFUL PLEASURES did not! Mary Reed McCall's journey never captured my imagination. Yet, wonderful opportunities were certainly there! The much-anticipated scene when Alissende tells Damien why she rejected him fell dramatically to the sidelines. And even the much-envisioned merriment of forbidden temptation and allurement disappeared into nothing. Alas, I drifted along with SINFUL PLEASURES, but I wanted a dunking. I wanted total immersion, for there is nothing as engrossing as a SUPERB medieval romance, sadly SINFUL PLEASURES was not!

Grade: C

MaryGrace Meloche.

This was my first book by MRM, and it just didn't click for me. Perhaps it was the author's use of overly descriptive prose, which I found distracting.

The characters and plot are pretty run-of-the-mill and you could see the "surprises" at the end coming a mile away. (**SPOILER** the baby, Alex)

If you're looking for a standard knight-in-shining-armor book this will certainly do, but it won't be going on my "re-read" shelf.