Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deliciously Seductive!, April 14, 2008
After the first book in the MacBride Family Trilogy, "The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell," the MacBride family is back in England after the tumultuous ending in India, with two wounded and brooding brothers Alec, the Duke of Glendon and his brother Aidan, but also a happy ending with Annabel MacBride and Simon Blackwell's marriage.
"The Seduction of An Unknown Lady" highlights Aidan, who is continuing to struggle with his physical and emotional injuries that took place in that final battle. Home in England as a hero, he feels anything but a hero, and spends many a long night brooding, until one night on a dark street he meets and rescues an Unknown Lady. Immediately something draws the handsome Aidan to the lonely and beautiful, Fionna Hawkes. Aidan has his physical and emotional struggles to deal with after the family's return, being partially blind in one eye, but also feeling deep guilt over the loss of numerous comrades in a battle in which he blames himself for. Fionna is a local bookseller and writer who secretly uses the pen name, F. J. Sparrow so she can assist her ill mother and provide the best of care for her.
Friendship soon develops into passion and a growing love as Aidan spends more and more time with Fionna. Fionna is frightened by Aidan's seduction and the intense passion she feels for him, while at the same time she understands the inner struggles he deals with and feels the need to help him, but at the same time does not trust enough to share her own burdens of her mother's illness and secret writing with Aidan. When Aidan discovers Fionna needs his protection from an unknown follower, he realizes that the beauty he has been seducing and is falling in love with has many unknown secrets. Aidan feels he must do whatever he can to help this beauty and what haunts her deep inside. Mysteries are revealed as love and passion bloom and soon Aidan learns that by revealing the unknown Fionna and the demons that haunt her dark world, she has helped him overcome his demons. Eventually their friendship and love deepens into more than a simple seduction of an unknown lady.
Every book Samantha James writes is a delight. Her writing style is captivating with characters that have depth and struggles to overcome. Her sensual scenes between the love interests are well-written while at the same time discovering true love and happiness are what really matter. It will be interesting to read Alec's story next, as the MacBride Family is one that is endearing and one which the reader can become absorbed in and enjoy. Ms. James has written another sensual romance with mystery and suspense that are again, like this story, difficult to put down.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not a true historical, May 11, 2008
The year is 1854, the height of the Victorian age. The heroine owns a book shop, lives in the apartments upstairs and is a bookish virgin. Yet she blithely goes out for midnight walks alone, has a cleaning lady in once or twice a week and goes out on dates with the hero. Is this a 21st century woman playing dress-up in Victorian garb?
As a lover of historical romances, I find myself fed up with today's publishing houses. Editors seem to have forgotten what a historical setting entails.
Shame on Samantha James for falling into that Bridget Jones' Diary trap. Women in 1850's England had real issues to confront. Not being able to own property, fear of pregnancy, knowing that your livelihood was based entirely on how your peers viewed your virtue. Not to mention the idea that any woman could manage a Victorian bookshop (as well as her warddrobe) with just a cleaning lady in once or twice a week is ridiculous. There was no electricity, no running water, no refrigerators to store food. Keeping a household clean, food on the table and clothing as well as your own personal hygiene acceptable was a full time job in itself.
As for the romance itself, it promised something never delivered. The most perilous bits came from the snippets of F.J. Sparrow's writing. The rest is a long diatribe if will she/won't she let him in the door. it had no emotional resonance. A pity since historical novels often have peril just by nature of the time they are set. In the 1850's London was an overcrowded city on the brink of epidemic disease and death. A woman alone had to be very clever just to survive.
Save yourself the aggravation of this current crop of historicals and go read some of the classic ones from a decade ago.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Heart Stirring Gothic Styled Romance! , March 26, 2008
Two lonely people tread the streets in the blackest depths of the midnight hour...
One walks deliberately--to let free the demons of her imagination...
One walks determinedly--to banish the demons that torment his soul.
Neither realizes something evil may be lurking in the dark...
In her latest novel, THE SEDUCTION OF AN UNKNOWN LADY, Samantha James creates a mesmeric and thoroughly intriguing romantic tale that successfully captures the style, flavor and essence of the classic gothic romance. The author gives us a heart stirring narration of her heroine, Fionna Hawkes and hero, Aidan McBride's intensely passionate love story--set in the cold winter of 1852 London, during the Victorian Era.
This is kind of a "dark" story--with several extremely poignant and heartrending elements--but I never felt it was too dark. I felt Ms James completely gains the reader's attention with her clever--and knowledgeable--use of the shadowy, eerie gothic writing style to create a wonderfully dark, mystifying, and sometimes ominously sinister atmosphere in the story. I know I was totally captivated. And Ms. James deftly sets up many delightful--or perhaps, a better choice of words would be frightful, mysterious, and occasionally disturbing--twists and turns in her skillfully constructed and multi-layered storyline... all strategically designed to keep her readers a bit unsettled, continuously guessing, and anxiously turning the pages.
And I thought she did a really superb job with the story's mood and tone, effectively using setting and language that was frighteningly suggestive--of fear, terror, gloom, menace, danger, secrecy, and a hint of the supernatural/paranormal--to appeal to all our emotions and senses. This spooky visual imagery worked so well that there were definitely moments that I felt a little prickling, spine-tingling chill on the back of my neck, and had a disquieting sense of unease right along with Fionna. At times I was so deeply immersed in the story that had anyone tapped me on the shoulder, I would surely have jumped out of my chair.
Also, I absolutely appreciated Ms. James use of the "story within the story" literary technique... which included pieces of the fictional author F J Sparrow's scary tale, The Demon of Dartmore at the beginning of every chapter... and ran parallel to Fionna and Aidan's story. It was an ideal combination of titillating horror and romance that enhanced the main story, and set the mood of each chapter perfectly.
I really liked how Ms. James wrote both Fionna and Aidan; I thought they were interesting, genuinely likable, and very relatable, believable characters. Fionna's an unconventional heroine; a strong, intelligent and fiercely independent woman who wants to be in charge of her own destiny--and for a woman of her time she is, to a degree--but when Aidan enters the picture she becomes deeply conflicted by her need for independence and her desire for love. I thought Fionna was truly a character any woman could relate to... and I sooo wanted her to be happy! Aidan is a rather tragic war hero who carries some physical and mental scars from his time in India. He's a proud, honorable and caring man... he tries so hard to understand Fionna, to provide the emotional support he knows she needs and to protect her. Even though she rebuffs him, he remains steadfast. I just loved him! I was so caught up in watching how their passion and desire for each other grew, as the tensions between them--and in the story--escalated. And I loved how Aidan breaks down all of Fionna's defenses--W0W!!!--their love scenes were sizzling HOT and VERY sensual.
The Seduction of an Unknown Lady is a marvelous book that will appeal to historical romance readers who appreciate a well written love story with a potent combination of sensual seduction and fiery passion--intertwined--with a dark gothic styled drama, a stimulating touch of terror and a dash of romantic suspense.
It's the second book in the "McBride trilogy" and is the follow-up to the darkly emotional, The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell--I highly recommend reading them both.
Bravo Ms. James... bring on book 3, Alec McBride's story!
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