Sinful Suitors #3
Sabrina Jeffries
Historical Romance
Published in 2016
H/h - Warren Corry, The Marquess of Knightford/Delia Trevor
Setting: London, 1830.
Read in May, 2017.
My rating:
[spoiler alert]
The Danger of Desire
is book 3 of Sabrina Jeffries’s Sinful Suitors series. Can’t say I was
too impressed with this one. This series, as a whole, has been a downer
for me, both story and character-wise. But I am giving it a try, hoping
that things will improve. *sigh*
I wasn’t surprised to find that the Sinful Suitors is connected to The Duke’s Men. Most of SJ’s series
are interlinked thru characters; secondary characters of one series
having their own books in a new one. I don’t think you must read The
Duke’s Men to enjoy Sinful Suitors, however, the characters have links
to the previous series so things may make more sense if you have already
read the former.
The first book of the series, The Art of Sinning,
is the story of a character appeared shortly in The Duke’s Men series;
an American artist named Jeremy Keane. He was the cousin of one of the
central characters there. I never thought him important enough to have
his own book so this was a surprise! The heroine, Yvette, was never
introduced before. Keane was running from a sad secret of his past
eschewing his own responsibilities back in America, and his artistic
whimsies gave him the perfect escape route to do so. He travelled
extensively for the sake of his vocation and their vast family run
empire is now managed by his elder sister Amanda. When Keane arrived in
England, he was set to have a title from one of his English relatives as
the next living male heir. However, due to some twists and turns and
Keane’s own disinclination to take on added responsibilities makes him
decline this in the end.
He meets Yvette through a mutual
acquaintance, Yvette’s own brother, Edwin. They were thinking of opening
this gentlemen’s club, whose purpose is to help protect the members’
female relatives from the lechers and fortune hunters AKA naughty
suitors. However, while planning the club with Edwin and Warren, Edwin’s
childhood friend, Jeremy meets Yvette who takes his breath away on
spot. It was attraction at first sight for both. Jeremy even takes up on
a portrait job for Yvette in hopes to... well, to acquaint himself
better with her. Yet, he wasn’t ready to promise anything more. The
whole push and pull and the melodrama of ‘should I’ or ‘shouldn’t I’
didn’t hold my attentions for long. It got too old too soon.
In book 1, we meet the h of book 2 The Study of Seduction,
Clarissa, who is Yvette’s close friend. Though Clarissa was never
introduced in any other series, Edwin was. Much like Jeremy, he was also
a minor character of The Duke’s Men, having been engaged to one of the
heroines for a short period of time. Poor guy was having a tough time
getting a bride, and a jilt from his ex-fiancée wasn’t helping much. His
family was already plagued by this huge scandal thanks to his
ne’ee-do-well younger brother Samuel (the whole story can be read in
book where Edwin was introduced). Yet he was nothing like Samuel, not
even close.
Being the eldest and the Earl, Edwin has been the
most serious of the siblings. Most brilliant and studious too. Edwin is
very interested in automatons. He studies them, and makes his own
versions of various things. Everybody thinks Edwin is starchy, quite
prudish; in other words, too uptight. Certainly, the jolly and flirty
Clarissa thought the same thing about her childhood crush. Oops but yes,
she has had a crush on him for a long time. But since Edwin never
showed any interest in her, she had never let her own interest show
either. Their chemistry was hot and quite fun and I enjoyed their book a
lot.
I read book 1.5, The Heiress and the Hothead,
after book 2. It was the story of Jeremy’s sister Amanda and Warren, the
Marquess of Knightford’s younger brother, Stephen. The whole story was
too rushed for my liking, taking place in and around weeks of one
Christmas. You can skip that one cause this little novella doesn’t
really connect books 1 and 2 in any way that matters.
Now, Warren
wasn’t a character I was keen on at all from the previous installments,
much like Jeremy Keane. He was one of those secondary characters, a
happy-go-lucky rake, that I tend to ignore for the most part. BUT there
have been times when I have reconsidered my opinion of such a character
when I read their book because they made me change my mind. Ms. Jeffries
has a few wonderful examples of them in some of her earlier series.
Warren’s book, The Danger of Desire, unfortunately didn’t blow
me in any way. For the longest time in the story nothing interesting was
happening. Nothing that I cared about.
Delia Trevor, daughter
of a known gambler and sister of another gambler who recently passed
away, was bend on revenge. She was also a completely new character that I
don’t remember from any previous installments. Her brother, Reynold,
had died a year ago by mysterious drowning. Some say it was accident,
some say he was murdered, while some say he committed suicide when he
lost all his money and land in gambling before he died. Delia though,
was almost certain that it was the latter. Reynold was
pushed into committing suicide because before he drew
his last breath, he confided in Delia about a man with a tattoo on one
of his arms, who was responsible. The story surrounding his death is
kinda vague throughout. How was it that Delia was able to talk to him
and glean that info, while his wife and Delia’s SIL, Brilliana, to this
day had no idea that Reynold committed suicide? Delia lied to her, and
everyone else, for the sake of preserving their already tattered
reputation. Their finance though was an entirely different matter.
Things were falling apart and Delia had to do something to save
Brilliana and her only nephew, little Silas, from going to the
poorhouse. She will try her best that that day never comes.
Delia
had no interest in marriage so her way of trying to kill two birds in
one stone was...uh, masquerading as a man and gamble in some of the most
unsavory gambling places in London. She was good and meant to make
complete use of it. That way, she could also ‘investigate’ Reynold’s
claim about a man with a tattoo, which wasn’t a very common occurrence
among the Lords who frequented those gaming hells. It should be easy
enough for her to find the culprit, accost him, then blackmail him into
returning Silas’s fortune. Easy peasy, right? *eyeroll* She was doing
fine until she visited one of Clarissa’s balls and met the annoying Lord
Knightford. She loves Clarissa as a good friend, but her very unsubtle
attempts at matchmaking were making Delia’s life hell. All she needed
now was Lord Knightford on her a$$ and ruin her ‘flawless plan’!
Little
did she know Warren already was on her a$$, both literally cause he
admired her wide hips *heehee* (another thing that makes me wonder how
did she ever pass as a man :/) AND, he wanted to find out what she’s up
to after discovering her ruse one night rather accidentally. Warren
would show up, taunt and teaser her, letting her know he knows it’s her,
later demanding she confide in him about her woes. Most especially why
the hell would she spend her nights disguised as a man, gambling away?
After all, Clarissa had requested him to keep an eye
on Delia, who was not accustomed to the fast London life.
I
always forget that they have that Club to save debutantes from naughty
suitors because it’s so rarely mentioned, so there was that, and Warren
took it on himself to become Delia’s unwanted guardian of sorts, much to
the glee of her Aunt who has been trying to get her a match since the
day she arrived. Brilliana was also delighted knowing Delia will be
married. After all, a Marquess is courting her (as Warren wanted it to
look like)! A very happy news for Trevor household. But, Delia knew of
Warren’s intentions. Though she was still annoyed at his
high-handedness, where he was trying to stop her from going forward with
her plans (he was duly worried but Delia won’t be swayed by reason :/)
she couldn’t quite completely dismiss him either. She was already
attracted to Warren but had no interest of getting involved with him, or
any man for that matter. In her experience, marriage wasn’t a happy
place if Reynold and Brilliana’s was an example. Delia would like to
stay far, far away from that, thank you very much!
Unfortunately,
the lout called Lord Knightford wasn’t making things easy for her by
any means. Warren was definitely attracted, and even though he’d rather
eat sh!t than marry, he was somewhere between ‘yay’ and ‘nay’ where
Delia was concerned. Plus he had a little secret that he didn’t want
Delia to know for, he was scared that it may unman him in her eyes. It
may have been the reason why he never thought of settling down before. I
thought the secret was ridiculous but I tried not to judge him overly
much for it. Fate helped them with a push when Delia and Warren find
themselves compromised one day in a house-party, caught by Delia’s Aunt
herself. Oh boy! Now there was no escaping for either Warren, or Delia.
Thankfully, it turned out neither of them wanted to escape from this
match. ;)
And there it went, they marry and fell in love right
away. They were already half-way there while playing their little game.
The mystery surrounding Reynold’s death was unraveled soon too. It was
rather underwhelming seeing how easily it was solved. In another part of
the story, Brilliana meets her one-time love, Niall, all of a sudden
and everybody is left mystified by that encounter as both denies to
explain any further. Niall is Clarissa’s brother, who was in exile for
quite a few years for killing man in a duel. He returned from exile in
book 2. The reason behind the duel can also be found in the same book.
He was only trying to defend Clarissa’s honor but, much as Brilliana,
not many knew the real story behind it. There were rumors, and that was
that. Fortunately, we will be finding out what transpired between them
in the next installment, The Pleasure of Passion, out soon. I, for one, am looking forward to knowing their history even better!
As for The Danger of Desire,
as you can see, nothing much was happening for me to be glued to the
story. It was fairly predictable in every aspect that I can think of. I
didn’t much care for Warren, and Delia would seem like someone very
smart, then would go and do something total TSTL, making me wanna
facepalm. *sigh* 3 stars.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
◈Thank you for visiting :)◈