Seven Years to Sin by Sylvia Day

Grade: B

passion rating: incendiary

Seven Years to Sin commences (and concludes) with coitus. At its start, Lady Jessica Sheffield, on the eve of her wedding, is walking her dog on her fiancé’s estate. The pug runs away and, as she chases it down, she stumbles across a gazebo in which Alistair Caulfield, a friend of her fiancé’s younger brother (and “likely the handsomest man in all of England”), is energetically inflagrente delicto with a woman old enough to be his mother. Jessica cannot look away and, as Alistair sees her watching him, neither can he.


This encounter changes them both. For Jessica, it awakens her sexual self; she is so aroused she seduces her fiancé that very night. For Alistair, it is the beginning of an obsession with Jessica, one he is unable to act upon until after she is widowed, seven long years later. Jessica, still missing the husband she loved, then decides to travel to Jamaica to visit a plantation she inherited upon his death. The ship she takes is Alistair’s and, the second he realizes she will be on it, he arranges to sail with her.


Seven Years to Sin is an intensely erotic novel. Alistair is known for his sexual prowess and he uses every skill he has to get and keep Jessica in his bed. Given that the two are on a ship he owns, they have a freedom they’d never have in 1800’s England. They have sex — hot, steamy, constant, detailed sex —over and over again and they talk as they couple. I’ve rarely encountered so many good old fashioned Anglo Saxon words (fuck, cock, bollocks, suck, seed, slit, cunt…) so often.


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Animal Magnetism by Jill Shalvis

Grade: A-

passion rating: hot

Jill Shalvis has a reputation for writing light, funny, sexy romances. Her latest, Animal Attraction, blows that reputation to smithereens. Make no mistake, Animal Attraction is funny and hot as hell. But it’s not light… it’s moving, empowering, and engaging. I've read it twice in the past month and both times it’s made me smile, sob, kiss my husband, and give my dog a big hug. It’s a great book.

Animal Attraction is the second in the Animal Magnetism series. The first book introduced readers to the protagonists of this tale, Jade Bennett and Dell Connelly, both of whom work at Belle Haven animal clinic in idyllic Sunshine, Idaho. Dell is the vet there; Jade, the office manager. Dell and Jade have been working together for the past eighteen months and have managed to keep their relationship strictly business. I don’t know how they did it. Dell is the sexiest, most appealing vet I’ve ever encountered. Despite all that, he’s a man afraid to love. Jade is equally grand. She’s wry, witty, and wounded — an ordeal in her past has made her almost cripplingly cautious. Watching the two become lovers considering love is bliss.

I relished this book. The world of Sunshine is utterly believable and yet — and this is hard to pull off — appealing. Ms. Shalvis writes marvelous dialog; her characters are interesting, realistic, amusing, and people I’d be pleased to hang out with. Dell’s rapport with his brothers Brady (the hero of Animal Magnetism) and Adam are worth the price of the book. The cleaning lady Bessie steals every page she’s on. And don’t even get me started on the animals. I hate cute with a passion and I enjoyed every non-human in this book… especially Peanut the parroting parrot.

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Bad Boys Do by Victoria Dahl

Grade: A-

passion rating: hot

Bad Boys Do, the second in Ms. Dahl’s exceedingly enjoyable Donovan Brothers Brewery series, is fabulous.  It’s sexy, sweet, funny, moving, and well-paced; it was a pleasure to read.

The heroine, Olivia Bishop, has a tolerable life. She’s 35, been divorced for a year, and is teaching community outreach courses at the local college. She’s well-shot of her husband and their marriage—he’s a pompous controlling professor who cheated on Olivia with his teaching assistant—but she’s lonely. Her friend Gwen talks her into coming to Gwen’s bookclub one night which is held monthly at Donovan Brother’s Brewery. Olivia, who comes planning to discuss the book, is startled to realize the other women there aren’t interested in literature; they’re there to ogle the hot 29 year old bartender and brewery owner, Jamie Donovan.

Jamie is a bona fide hottie. Nights he wears his kilt to the Brewery---his sister Tessa, the heroine of the first book in the series, Tweets his clothing status to his many female fans--, women flock there to gaze lustfully at him and dream of a night in his bed. Jamie doesn’t take women home, however. He hasn’t wanted a woman in over a year. Jamie is tired of a meaningless life—he wants to be more than the playboy bartender he’s been since college. He dreams of adding a restaurant to the brewery, taking on more responsibility, and proving to his siblings, especially his critical older brother Eric, that he, Jamey, is a peer not a problem.

Jamie and Olivia both notice each other the night of the book club, and both are surprised when Olivia turns out to be the instructor in a class Jamie is taking. The minute the first class ends, Jamie walks up to Olivia’s desk and asks her out. She says no, shocked at the idea of dating both a student and—to her—a much younger man. However, later in the week, when she’s is invited to a faculty party where she knows her ex-husband and his girl-friend will be, Olivia decides Jamie would be the perfect date to show her ex how well she’s doing without him and she asks Jamie out.

Thus begins a lovely relationship. Both Jamie and Olivia doubt themselves. Olivia worries she’s dull—her ex told her she just wasn’t fun—and Jamie has family issues that stem from his parents’ death when he was a teen. Olivia thinks Jamie can help her loosen up and learn how to enjoy life; Jamie needs Olivia to help him make his plans for Donovan Brewery a success. It’s wonderful to watch both Olivia and Jamie get just what they need from each other.

Jamie most certainly helps Olivia loosen up. She’s not a virgin, but she’s only ever slept with her ex-husband, and her sense of herself sexually is fairly repressed. Jamie—one of the sexiest men I’ve ever encountered in a book—introduces Olivia to passion beyond anything she could have imagined. There is a scene in this book, when the two are newly lovers, which is incendiary. In it, Olivia lies on her stomach staring at the mirror hung aside her bed. As she watches Jamie make love to her, as she watches him watching himself slide in and out of her, she’s overcome with emotional and physical sensation. It’s brilliantly written—it sets a standard for sensual, blunt prose romance writers should aspire to.

Olivia gives Jamie the confidence to see himself as a grown-up with skills that go beyond the looks and charm he’s famed for. Jamie has never had a serious girlfriend before and, with Olivia, he learns how to share himself in a way he’d never considered viable for him. He takes his newly learned interpersonal skills and uses them to improve his complex relationships with Eric and Tessa. He also begins to forgive himself for the sins of his past and, as he takes each step, Olivia is there beside him. Together, they forge an adult relationship, one that has passion and power.

The book’s only weakness is the obligatory conflict that, briefly, pushes the two apart. But even that is better done than the vast majority of BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS which drive the plots of most romances.

I liked Good Girls Don't a lot. I loved Bad Boys Do. I suspect most readers of contemporary romance will too. It’s a great book.

One Night in London by Caroline Linden

Grade: B-

passion rating: hot

Reading One Night in London was for me, rather like a date with a really great guy I just couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for. There’s nothing wrong with the book. It just didn’t stir my reading passions.


In this serviceable Regency romance, the heroine Lady Francesca Gordon needs a good lawyer. She’s convinced her young orphaned niece, Georgina, is being held against the child’s will by her stepmother for financial gain. Francesca has been turned down by solicitor after solicitor — her case is iffy and she’s a woman — but she finally convinces the best lawyer in London, a Mr. Wittiers, to take her case. However, minutes after he agrees to help her, one of his flunkies tells her he’s changed his mind. Wittiers has been called to work on what might be “the case of the decade” for a titled client and her case no longer interests him.


The titled client is Edward de Lacey, the second son of the recently dead Duke of Durham. Edward has a big problem. Moments after his father passed away, the family solicitor informed Edward and his younger brother Gerard that they, and their dissolute elder brother Charlie, may all be illegitimate with no claim to their family’s wealth and property. The departed Duke married someone other than their mother in his youth, neglected to get divorced, and the fate of the first wife is unknown. If she was living when the Duke married their mother, the second marriage would be invalid and his three sons would be, legally, bastards.


Edward is his family’s rock, the son who manages both the Durham money and the Durham name. He’s a calm, smart, proper man who cherishes order. When he discovers his possible paucity of proper parentage, he’s flummoxed and fearful. After his family’s secret hits the nastiest of London’s tabloids, his fears are realized in the worst way: The woman he loves breaks off their engagement, his older brother sinks further into debauchery, and his younger brother, a military hero, begins muttering about murder. So when the tempestuous, flame-haired Francesca arrives at his house and upbraids him for stealing her counsel, he makes a pact with her. She’ll use her influence with the publisher of the news rag to have the story pulled and Edward will help her find a decent lawyer.


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Good Girls Don't by Victoria Dahl

Grade: B

passion rating: hot

Stephen King once wrote “Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.” Ms. Dahl’s latest heroine, Tessa Donovan, is a liar Mr. King would recognize. Tessa so loves her two older brothers — the three were orphaned years ago — she lies to them constantly, about important things, all in an effort to hold their family together. One of her larger filial deceptions is that she's a good girl, sweet, and (at 27) pure. This particular lie becomes impossible to maintain the minute she lays eyes on Detective Luke Asher.

Good Girls Don’t is the first of three books about the Donovan siblings, all of which are being released this fall. The three siblings run Donovan Brewing Company; Tessa is the youngest. Her older brother Eric is the overly responsible workaholic who runs the brewery; her middle brother Jamie is the hottie who manages the adjacent bar. The two men routinely are at odds with one another over the family business and Tessa sees herself as the one who, at all costs, must keep their unit together.The book begins with a break-in at the brewery. 


When Tessa arrives to “manage” the situation, she finds Jamie there with Luke Asher, a detective with the Boulder Police Force. Jamie and Luke went to college together and are, nominally, friends. Tessa takes one look at Luke and her libido kicks into overdrive. She pockets his card and, a day later, calls him up and asks him out. Luke is at first inclined to say no — Jamie noticed the heat between Tessa and Luke and told Luke in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from his little sister. However, Tessa is sexy and persuasive and despite Jamie’s threats, Luke finds himself saying yes, repeatedly, to Tessa.

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Vicky Dreiling's "How to Seduce a Scoundrel"

Grade: D

passion rating: hot

Ms. Dreiling’s latest novel How to Seduce a Scoundrel is only 396 pages long, but to me it seemed endless. By the time I reached the sappy sentence fragment that comprises the last line of the book, I felt as though I had been reading haplessly for days.

The heroine of this turgid tale, Lady Julianne Gatewick, has loved Marc Darcett, Earl of Hawkfield — everyone calls him Hawk — since she was a child. He, much to her dismay, sees her as the little sister of his best friend. Julianne, a twenty-one year old with the maturity of a hormonal teen, is devastated when Hawk announces to the world (while at a ball) that he has absolutely no interest in her as a bride. His rejection leaves Julianne no choice but to pursue him idiotically for the next 300 pages of the novel.

This book has little to recommend it. Julianne is a twit — a twit who is, of course, the most beautiful woman in London. Hawk is a mass of seething contradictions congealed into a hero whose actions seem at best baffling and at worst unethical. The preeminent thing in the novel — and there’s very little competition — is the advice of Hawk’s aunt Hester, a widow with five deceased husbands, who tells Julianne the way to a man’s heart is through his “nether regions.” Julianne takes Hester’s advice and proceeds to spend much of the novel trying to get Hawk to try to bed her. Then, when he is finally dazed with the sort of desire she’s always felt for him, she plans to dump him and thus soothe her wounded pride. This, of course, makes no sense given that she’s loved him for years.

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Anne Mallory's "Total Surrender"

Grade: B-

passion rating: warm

Rarely have I so looked forward to a book as I did Anne Mallory’s Total Surrender, the third book in her Secrets series. My favorite historical romance—thus far—of 2011 is One Night is Never Enough, the second book in the series. One Night is Never Enough introduced the hero of this book, the brooding, seemingly violent Andreas Merrick. In Total Surrender, the taciturn and remote Andreas finds his world upended by the gentle, chatty Phoebe Pace. I enjoyed their love story tremendously, but I found the plot surrounding the two difficult to comprehend.

Andreas is a dark hero, a man with a terribly abusive past and a brutal present. He runs a vast criminal empire in London with his brother (the hero of One Night is Never Enough) who is currently out of the country on his honeymoon. Normally Andreas could run the underworld in his sleep but his life becomes disordered when Phoebe enters his life. Her family owns a carriage manufacturing company which Andreas—unbeknownst to Phoebe—has been trying to destroy as part of a complex revenge plot against another man whom Andreas has hated for years. Andreas isn’t the only one with secrets in this story. Phoebe’s father is suffering from dementia, her brother is missing, and she, clandestinely, has been running the carriage company.

Phoebe slowly inserts herself into Andreas’s life much to his astonishment. He terrifies almost all who know him and he is used to intimidating everyone. Phoebe is not only not intimidated by him; she’s attracted to him and is determined to win his trust and his heart. Their interactions are a joy to read. Andreas’s cunning and manipulative intelligence is no match for Phoebe’s ability to genuinely charm Andreas (and all who work for him). I loved their verbal interchanges as well as Andreas’ inner musings.

Ms. Mallory is unmatched in her ability to write interesting, original, compelling characters. Phoebe, Andreas, and all who surround them are written exceedingly clearly and well. One of the delights of the novel is the dialogue Ms. Mallory writes for each and every character. As the (mostly) men in her novel talk to one another, each has an entertaining and discrete voice. Andreas’s revenge plot is exceedingly complicated and Ms. Mallory advances her story with clues casually dropped in conversation between not only Andreas and Phoebe but all those in the novel. I loved “listening” to the characters converse but couldn’t quite get the traces of information they shared to coalesce into an evident plot. The story was blurry and indistinct—even by the novel’s end, I wasn’t completely sure I understood exactly what had happened.

The last quarter of the book is rushed and not nearly as satisfying as all that has come before it. I wanted more passion between Andreas and Phoebe, more support for Andreas’s character change, and more information about what happened and why to Phoebe’s brother. I truly disliked the epilogue Ms. Mallory tacked on to the end of her tale—she’s a much better author than her pat almost saccharine ending suggests.  

I enjoyed Total Surrender but I didn’t love it. It’s not as strong a book as the two that precede it both of which are superb. I still rank Ms. Mallory as one of the best historical romance novelists writing today and look forward to her next book. I hope is better than the good but not great Total Surrender.