Customer Reviews

Sweet Treason

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

 

 

I can't for the life of me imagine why James found Katherine in any way worthy of love. What an arrogant twit she was. The ending was completely unbelieveable - she was the cause of his losing everything else he might have held dear in his life, but it didn't matter because he loved her? I thought her responses were incredibly immature and self-centered, and I felt sorry for James for being so caught up in her. This is one of the few books I've read lately where I just intensely disliked one of the main characters, and the ending didn't resolve anything for me because I didn't believe it.

Lady Katherine MacGregor's sedate life is destroyed when deserters from the English army cross into Scotland and kill her family. Vowing revenge, she becomes a spy for the Jacobite cause. She poses as a prostitute and steals a satchel containing secret documents from an English officer. She is caught, but claims she thought she was simply stealing the officer's money. James Burke, an English officer and viscount, is given the responsibility of escorting this "Scottish prostitute" to Lancaster for her trial on charges of treason. The first half of the book is a wonderfully funny road romance, as Katie and Burke match wits and exchange barbs during their journey. He suspects she truly is a spy and is determined to discover the truth. Still, he finds himself unsettled by his growing attraction to a woman he disdains as a prostitute. She slowly is forced to admit her attraction to one of the hated English. Eventually, recognizing her feelings for him, she saves his life, which sets in motion a chain of events that lands him in hot water. I love this book for several reasons, but mostly because of the fabulous characters. These are two of the most real people I've ever read in a romance. Gaffney modulates these characters perfectly. Although flawed, the characters always remain likable. In some romances, readers are "told" by the writer that a character is supposed to be arrogant, or intelligent, or some other such adjective, but the actions of the character don't really bear that out. In this novel, the personalities of the main characters directly influence their actions and the course the book takes. Sweet Treason also contains wonderful bantering dialogue that makes me laugh out loud at times, and yet I wouldn't call this book a comedy. It takes a turn to the dramatic about halfway through, and the drama is just as involving as the comedy is funny. The love scenes are fresh--I didn't read them thinking I'd read scenes like them a dozen times before. Even the secondary characters are well-developed and original. I also found the heroine's "pathological lying" to be quite logical for the story--after all, her life depends on her ability to clear herself of treason charges.

I am a huge Patricia Gaffney fan and I must concur with other reviewers here who give this book a tepid review. This book starts out just swell - energetic and fun and sassy...and this it all just...goes away.

Disappointing and not up to her usual good work.

I cannot imagine how anyone could fall in love with the heroine, who is a brain short of a lobotomy and a pathological liar. The hero must be a masochist, for he keeps on coming back for more betrayals, the last of which leaves him without family, friends, home, fortune and very nearly, life. I found their romance preposterous and pathetic. Too bad because a lot more could have been done with the premise. Gaffney's Wickerly series (To Love and to Cherish, etc.) is much better.

This book started out great, the first half does a good job of setting up the story. The interaction between the two main characters is funny and romantic, and then it takes a turn for the terrible. At every opportunity for the characters to grow and develop along with a premise that could have been very interesting, the author plunges the characters into more hateful acts. Instead of exploring a developing relationship between two people at cross purposes, this becomes a story of a sick psychotic love obsession.

In a romance novel the lovers have to be someone worth winning, not someone that you are sorry they got stuck with. In true Jane Eyre style, by the end of the book you can't stand the selfish, stuck-up, "heroine" who knows whats right but can't do it, and you feel so disgustingly sorry for and disappointed in the ruined "hero" that you put the book down feeling sick. Worse, you feel as though you wasted your time.

this book wasn't horrible - the first part was actually pretty entertaining, but it got a bit tedious after a while. She lies, he discovers, she lies, he discovers...if you really want a great romantic adventure with a fabulous Scotsman and a great, strong English woman, read Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER

In spite of a beginning with good characterization and plot potential, I was very disappointed with this book overall. The book seemed to start falling apart for me after the first sex scene, which was VERY hot, as the main character Kate, has an unforgettable seduction scene with James in which she must convince him she is a whore, rather than being faced with the possibility of hanging for treason. We already see that James suspects Kate/Katherine's (sexual) innocence, but after taking her, it seemed strange that a man of his supposed experience had no indication that he'd just taken a virgin. I kept waiting for it - even for a sign on the sheets, but any physical evidence is ignored by the writer and there obviously would be the physical barrier, pain for her - something. Then, it degenerates from there with James lapsing into alternating boorish, callous behavior, and being nauseatingly gushing and obsessive in his thoughts and emotions over Kate - even after he believes her to be a true whore, and responsible for a betrayal that leads to his near-hanging and ruin of his good name, estrangement from his loved ones, inheritance and family estates, etc. The end does not satisfy! The loose ends are never sewn up, and from this reader's' perspective, he never has the epiphany moment desired, i.e. that Kate is not a whore, what she did and did not actually do to betray him, and why she did it, etc. He just is obsessively "in love", and unrealistically satisfied with having her, even though his life has been ruined, and his eyes, she's still he traitorous little whore. Such a shame! This book had two very well-drawn, sympathetic characters in the beginning, and strong plot potential. The sex scenes are very good, but if you're looking for story, this one is readable, but still a let-down.

I enjoyed this story, as I do just about all of Patricia Gaffney's books. Katherine and James were wonderful characters, with Katherine being Scottish and James English. I must read!