Customer Reviews

The Temptation

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

This had to be the strangest romance novel I ever read, and I've read quite a few. I had, however, never read anything by Claudia Dain; I liked the look of the cover art, & the plot blurb on the back cover sounded intriguing...stupid me! Don't buy a book by its cover!! It's not that it's so badly written, but with the heroine having her period throughout the whole book (just about)...what a plot device! There's the hero's impatience to consummate the marriage, and then when her father reveals his true nature...in somewhat graphic detail...Ewww! My one-star is for a moving passage about 10 pages from the end of the book, when the heroine questions why God didn't save her from her father's attentions, and the hero responds about Christ having suffered horribly, why should his servants suffer less? I've just messed up the quote, but I think that's what the author wanted to convey all along but she couldn't get that across until the end (maybe). Anyway the rest of this book was really kind of gross. Avoid at all costs.

I got this book as a Christmas gift from my sister L, I don't know what I did to deserve this. I thought she loved me. Claudia Dain has a preoccupation with the minstral cycle and any questions that anyone has regarding it are answered by this book. Seriously, I like the other reveiwers have read many upon many romances and just books in general. I think that I am not alone in my opion that not even James Patterson, Dean Koontz or Stephen King cannot compare with the "blood letting" in this book. I will never EVER read another book by this aurthor. The good news is if she got published there is hope for us all.

I have been reading romance novels for years and this has got to be the absolute worst "Wallbanger" I have ever run across! This was the worst waste of paper I have ever seen. Ms Dain what were you thinking? 300 pages of bloody female cycles. Yuck.... This is romantic???

I waited several months for this book and I was so disapointed! The story would have been really good if it had been written differently then what it was. The story had great potential if the writer had not used most of the story on the heroine's problem, which was her monthly ministration. I got tired of reading about that over and over again. The writer wrote more about the heroines period and forgot about the main meat of the story. There is only so much you can read about a woman's period and how it affects the couples relationship before it gets monotonous.

I picked up this book on impulse, on a trip. The alluring cover completely fails to deliver... It's more than 300 pages before this couple gets together! How do I know that?? Because I gave up after the first hundred or so pages of vicariously experiencing the heroine's period, and skipped ahead to see when it finally ended. I have read HUNDREDS of "romance" novels - this is the worst, and one of the few I've been unable to complete. It should not be categorized under "romance", nor "historical"..maybe "medieval medicine", or "religious debate."

This book should be required reading for every preteen before she gets her period. After reading it she'll know exactly what to expect. The writer has a definite gift for making the reader feel a part of the action...her colorful, in depth hundreds of pages description puts you right there in the room with the heroine. Except that this is supposed to be a love novel. Lacking the writer's gift for colorful adjectives I can only say...ugh.

This is my first time ever to comment on a book. I feel I must warn any reader to run. Unless of course you feel the need to have menstruation or the bible explained via a "romance" novel?!. I, like others before me, read on (7 days)in hopes that I had not wasted my money. It never got better. Not only did it go on for 300 pages of bleeding and prayer, but then you had to end with incest? Okay, which of these is romantic?? All have been included in historical romances before, but not at nausium. And certainly not without other plot issues to balance it. I have to say I have read 100's of books and this is by far the worst ever! It out did even the boring crap I read in college for Psychology class. AND THEY WERE TEXT BOOKS!

Normally, I love claudia dain's books. but i'm just not sure what she was thinkin' when she plotted out this one. First of all, the woman was a very sheltered virgin - yet from the get go, the hero carries on continuous conversations about her menstrual periods. and she discusses it back with him - BOING! knocked me out of the story. and between the GRAPHIC childbirthing scenes littering the book - BOING! just freaked me out of the book. the "blood" imagery throughout the book made me feel like a well used blood donor. And for some reason, the heroine (the very sheltered one) seems to know that if the man she married is a sodomite, under church law she can get out of this marriage. of course, there is absolutely no inkling that he might even be of that persuasion so i don't understand how she leapt to that conclusion.further, i find it hard to believe she would even know about that stuff, being such a sheltered girl. Now, just to be fair, there is some very clever dialogue between the hero and heroine and he is PERSISTENT, to say the least. but i am not sure - perhaps, like jo beverly, ms. dain suffered from a case of anemia (due to loss of blood, i'm sure) thereby creating a book that is anemic at best. I shall not give up on the author, but, wow, sorry, this book was a bloody disappointment

what can i add to the previous reviews with the exception of
harriet's. it took 4 days to read this book. i kept hoping it
would get better as i like claudia dain. what was she and her
agent and her editor and her publisher thinking?? who in their
right mind would think people would like this book? this wasn't
a romance it was a travesty. if i read the word blood, bled,
bleeding etc one more time i would have been sick. it wasn't
enough we had the descriptions of 'blood gushing, running, flowing etc etc the hero kept referring to himself as a man of
blood. somebody needs to sit down with author and explain to her what a real romance is about because it sure isn't about this!!!i would be very careful beford a wasted more money of this lady's books.

I have read Claudia Dain's book before and they were okay in quality. This book hits a new low...was there a plot? There was--if the plot centered simply on a woman's period for over 300 pages. Romance novels are for escapism...this most definitely was not...about half way through I wanted to escape and donated the book to charity without finishing it.