Customer Reviews

Sinful

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is the 1st book of St. John Series. Read Wicked (story of Beau, Sinjin's son), the second book of the series.

After reading this book, I didn't write a review for it right away as I normally would have. I always write a book review ( esp. when I am taken by the story) as soon as I finished the book, that way the story is still fresh in my mind. However, this book seems to have puzzled me. I like the plot, the hero & the heroine. I enjoyed the book immensely, no doubt about it but there was something either wrong or missing to it. I didn't know what it was until I read it the second time.

Sinjin St. John, Duke of Seth is like most hero in every historical romance novel. He is handsome, rich, a rake & England's most eligible bachelor. However, he has a dark past which made him vow never to marry or fall in love again. Sinjin's life seemed prefectly content until Chelsea Fergusson appeared in his carriage with scandalous yet tempting request. She begs Sinjin to take her virginity, to save her from unwanted marriage. This is one of my favorite scenes - Her naive comments, suggestions & statements on how to go about this request & Sinjin's reaction to it is simply amusing. Sinjin noted that Chelsea is clearly a high breed lady ( despite her scandalous request ) and among other things, sister of his friend, Duncan... so naturally, he painfully refused the request & took her home. But the head strong & determined Chelsea will not be deterred....

The immediate story line of this book is pretty much causal - rich, handsome, eligible rake hero and a head strong, intelligent & beautiful heroine who is arranged to an unwanted marriage by family to improved financial status or to pay off gambling debts. However, what made their story much more appealing though is the way they both intensely react to each other. Sinjin & Chelsea didn't follow propriety or rules of the society. They were sorta a rebel. Yes, they try to be discreet but passion & the strong attraction interfered with common sense. I highly enjoyed Chelsea's character. She is innocent yet seductively naughty & straight forward. She wasn't afraid to feel & react to their passion, which are all new to her. As for Sinjin, sex was definitely not new to him but there's an unexplainable urge of desire only Chelsea can satisfy (temporarily). He was always careful and have never caroused beyond brothels or married woman. Chelsea however, he sought after... She was a risk he was pleasantly willing to take. They both least thought nor expected LOVE.

The only thing that bothered me about this book is Sinjin's abrupt change of character towards the end. You'll have to read the book to know what I mean. Given the circumstances, I could understand his bitterness... but his cold & rude treatment towards Chealse was simply uncalled for, (given the circumstances that she wasn't entirely at fault) & it dragged on for quite a long time too. I was disappointed because Sinjin was such a gentleman to Chelsea in the beginning of the book. He was sooo smooth and controlled. He was kind, thoughtful, playful & gentle to her. Almost as if you can see that he truly cares for her. His intense attraction towards her in the beginning was too much to abruptly just turn around like that. He became very insulting, degrading Chelsea & very hurtful. To the extreme! This really irritated me, perhaps I just feel so sorry for Chelsea that i am not reading through reasons. Chelsea's character also changed towards the end, she was too understanding, too accepting & too forgiving... She was reaching out to him with all her heart, waiting... waiting... waiting for Sinjin to come around, which is kindda devastating. She blamed herself more even if they were both force into that situation together. After what she's been through (esp. that awful stormy night), I rather think that Sinjin should be the one to do the reaching out most.

Well, despite that small troubled comment above, the whole story/book in general is entertainingly romantic & heart quenching. I surely recommend it! Despite the ordinary immediate plot, the steamy love scenes & twists somehow contributed in making this book unconventionally different from the usual historical romances novels that I have read by far.

If you like crass, this book is for you too! The heroine turned me off with her first sentence in the whole book (you can take a peek with Amazon's handy sneek peeks that lets you view the first few chapters - it's right there in the beginning of chapter 3). The only reason I kept reading was because this book was recommended to me and I kept wanting it to get better. My son's name is Sinjun (I got that name from an Olympic volleyball player from back in the 80's) and even I knew that it was the way the french pronounce St. John (think "Sen ZHAWN") - making his name rather redundant. Aside from that, I felt the characters lacked depth and the only thing that held them together was sex. I learned more about what Sinjin looked like on the outside (what he wore, how well he wore it, etc...) without hardly getting a peek inside the man as a feeling, thinking being - beyond his thoughts about Chelsea - "I want her but I don't know why." I personally can't understand how other reviewers were "captivated" by this book. I can read a good book in a matter of hours but I had to "swallow" this one down like medicine. Maybe it's because I started out reading romances like A Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux or maybe I'm just picky about what I read - I enjoy books that are hard to put down and pull you inside the story. This book just made me feel like I was pulled into their bedroom to watch!

The beginning starts off soooooo well. It's so naughty and nice, you know you like 'em that way. Sinjin is a wonderful bad boy in style. He's rich, so debonair, and has a good balance of wham-bamming and gentle caresses. Ahh. so very sinfully rich The girl Chelsea, I must say, is a truly wonderful character who isn't the usual prude. I got to give her extra points for being curiously intelligent type instead of the pompous academic *****. and she's also sexually curious, but not to the point of well..dirtiness.

All goes lovely in the book UNTIL Sinjin departs from his lady love, after all, he's a bad boy and has many duties to fulfill. Then the plot AND characterization falls apart. I see evidences of rush, procrastination, and this books surely wouldn't hurt to get another revision to get the narrative smoother.

This is not your feel-good book. Some of the scenes rather hurt emotionally. The conflicts are rather extreme. Sinjin's character totally changes to weirdness. He turns into what you might call- a sensitive guy (Yucko).

Things don't go as well for Chelsea. She goes through some hell, making you just want to cry with her.

The other flaw of this book is the theme of the arranged marriage. I am sick of people getting forced to get married by officious relatives. The quarkiest part of this theme is that the love comes AFTER the marriage.

I absolutely did not appreciate the toning down of the characters in Sinful. I wish they were allowed to be more consistent. Such great potential for this book gone wasted. *Sigh*

I did not like characters in this book. Sinjun was a sleazy himbo and the whole harem thing did not work for me. The plot of the book has many faults. For example, Sinjun is captured by her family and escapes, but they never come after him or the daughter. Why? It makes no sense. Another character makes threats on Chealsea, but there is no intense conflict which would have been developed. The book has footnotes in it, which I find annoying. This is not a college project to write a book. Any historical comments need to be in the story and not footnotes. If I want english history, I'll buy english history - not a romance novel.

I liked some of her previous work but this one was just irritating sometimes. She delves into this whole jealousy thing between Cassandra and Vivian againts Chelsea and they infact BET on the likelyhood of the marriage failing and then you hear nothing about them again. He is so used to having sex ALL of the time and then all of a sudden he stops because he is so enamored with Chelsea after she loses thier baby. I mean he slept with her on numerous occasions, left and forgot about her, went back to his mistress(es), and doesn't see her again until he is kidnapped and forced to marry her becuase of the pregnancy! I just thought some of the characters could have been more developed and I wished Chelsea had more of a spine to walk out on him for good rather than just politely ask him about Cassandra. It was just an okay book with alot of stuff that could have been more developed and alot of stuff that could have been left out. The guy she was supposed to get engaged to is just invented to be an irritant throughout the story.

I bought this book expecting a great read. The cover at least made it sound good. The first part was promising too! Then it got wierd. Once Sinjun and Chelsea had a falling out, he turned so cold that I stopped liking him at all. I agree with the 1st reviewer too, the bad part went on far too long.

Then suddenly there is all of this kidnapping/harem/blind stud/exhibitionsitic/misogynistict stuff that completely disrupts the flow of the book. She begins introducing new characters quickly in the last 50 pages and it becomes some wierd history piece about fueding impotent Arabs etc. As a "Regency" reader, I totally lost interest at this part as it turned into an action/adventure bodice ripper.

The author seems to lose her track somewhere along the way and lost me as well.

I liked this book very much...Sinjin was adorable and Chelsea had a lot of spunk. The writing was great, I really felt I was in that era. Susan Johnson should be given high marks for historical detail.
I just have two complaints. First, I felt a lot of issues were not resolved between the two. Sinjin and Chelsea never talked about his first love Catherine, especially when its clear she played such an important part in his life. I would also like if Ms Johnson tones down the sexuality of her heroes...Sinjin would have been more adorable if he wasn't SUCH a rake!
Secondly, I was vastly disappointed that this book did not have any of the erotic scenes unlike in her other books such as Brazen and Forbidden. There wasn't even one single detailed love scene which left me feeling bad. This is after all a Susan Johnson book!

This book would be better categorized as erotica rather than romance. The erotic passages are graphic, if unimaginative. The main characters are irritatingly selfish and unsympathetic. Instead of the warm-hearted chase that defines most romance novels, the plot of this story follows two unpleasant characters through the random events that bring them together. You hope for them to end up together, not because it's true love and a happy ending, but because it will keep them from inflecting themselves on others.

it was absolutely wonderful. it is a must read. i could not put it down. the charecters are great and the plot is also good. It is sad as well as funny and is chuck full of fun romance and creative love scenes. It is the best one i have read all year!!!

I love SJ's work...but I must say this was a bit of a let down. The story starts out really good. But towards the middle the story takes a turn for the worst. The hero (Sinjin) Starts out as this charming, sexy and wonderful character. But as soon as the he finds out the heroine (Chelsea) is pregant.....he immediately turns into the devil. Ok granted the heroine's father made him marry her...however, he says some horrible things to her and never really repents of his wrong towards her. I was actually hoping that she would leave him at some point. The part of the story when Sinjin and Chelsea in up in North Africa and becomes a part of a harem was really wierd and took so much from what could have been a good story. Yes I love SJ...but this just did not cut it for me.