The Edge of Desire (Bastion Club, #7)

by Stephanie Laurens

book data

145 ratings, 3.68 average rating, 22 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		24%
4		28%
3		37%
2		7%
1		1%

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published

September 1st 2008 by Avon

binding

Mass Market Paperback, 433 pages

url

http://www.stephanielaurens.com/Bastions...

characters

Letitia Randall, Christian Allardyce (Marquess of Dearne)

setting

The United Kingdom

isbn

0061246360 (isbn13: 9780061246364)

description

They proved their bravery fighting for His Majesty's Secret Service and were rewarded with brides of great beauty and breeding. But one member of the ...more

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05/05/08

Isis FG rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, info--full, reviewed, romance--historical-england, series--bastion-club, z2008-july-dec

Read in October, 2008

recommended to Isis FG by: continuation of a series

I'm giving this one 4 stars, but that might be a little generous because though I did enjoy this one quite a bit, there were still some things I didn't like.

Christian is the last remaining bachelor of the Bastion Club, a group he and he friends formed so that they could find wives THEY wanted, not who they got pushed with. Like the others, he wants to marry, but his heart still belongs to the woman he loved and lost years before. She'd broken his heart and was unreachable. Until h...more I'm giving this one 4 stars, but that might be a little generous because though I did enjoy this one quite a bit, there were still some things I didn't like.

Christian is the last remaining bachelor of the Bastion Club, a group he and he friends formed so that they could find wives THEY wanted, not who they got pushed with. Like the others, he wants to marry, but his heart still belongs to the woman he loved and lost years before. She'd broken his heart and was unreachable. Until he receives a dire message from Letitia. She desperately needs his help. Her husband has been murdered and her brother stands accused. Though he knows he should stay away from her, he's helpless when it comes to her. But as he spends time with her, working on her husband's murder, he learns that things from the past aren't all that they seem. And he also learns that the passion and love that existed between them so long ago is anything but dead. The only problems are convincing Letitia to believe in a future for them, and finding out who really murdered her husband.

Like the other Bastion Club books, this one has got a decent mix of romance and moderately suspenseful plot. Though I'll admit I thought the other books has a better plot than this one, which seemed a bit predictable and obvious. I knew pretty much what was going to happen and there weren't any surprises at all with the plot resolution. But the story was still interesting enough to keep me reading.

Romance wise...I did enjoy Christian and Letitia a lot. There's an obvious chemistry between them. And their backstory adds a nice reunion element. Laurens did a great job of conveying the emotions of the characters and making me believe in them as a couple.

One of my complaints, though? A little too much sex in the book. There just seemed to me to be a lot of sex scenes...or maybe it was the fact that some of the scenes were really long. There was one that was approximately 15 pages (I counted) and halfway through I was bored to tears and just wanted them to get on with it. It made the book drag a bit at times. And it just wasn't necessary.

Another small quibble I had was the constant references to the Vaux family and their notorious reputation for being histrionic, emotional, etc. I couldn't count the number of times there were statements like "being a Vaux, and everybody knew about them" and I was just like, okay, I got it the first 10 times it was said. No need to repeat it!

So yeah, though this was mostly an enjoyable book, it had some issues. It was a pretty good edition to the series. I think if you've been reading the series, you'll probably like it. The epilogue, though? Super frustrating! Why? If you've been reading the series, you know about the mysterious Dalziel...well, the epilogue is basically an intro to his story, which whets your appetite...and then you see that his book won't be out until Fall 2009. Almost a whole year away. I don't want to wait that long! LOL. It should be an interesting story, though!(less)

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08/25/08

Julie (jjmachshev) rated it:

bookshelves: 2008-reads, queuemyreview

Read in August, 2008

Reviewed for queuemyreview.com; book release Sep08

“The Edge of Desire” is Stephanie Laurens sixth book of her ‘Bastion Club’ regency novels. In short, the heroes of these novels have returned from the Napoleonic wars and found themselves prime bait for the matchmaking mamas of the ton. They formed their own club (hence the name) and decided to make their own decisions regarding their future wives as they have each now succeeded to their titles and need to marry to carry on ...more Reviewed for queuemyreview.com; book release Sep08

“The Edge of Desire” is Stephanie Laurens sixth book of her ‘Bastion Club’ regency novels. In short, the heroes of these novels have returned from the Napoleonic wars and found themselves prime bait for the matchmaking mamas of the ton. They formed their own club (hence the name) and decided to make their own decisions regarding their future wives as they have each now succeeded to their titles and need to marry to carry on the family name. I’ve read each of her Bastion Club novels, and I think this one is my favorite so far.

Christian returned from the war to discover the woman he loved hadn’t waited for him as she promised. He feels anger and bitterness that she broke her vow to him and has done his best to avoid contact as much as possible -- until he receives a visit from her, asking for his help. As much as he would like to turn her away…he just can’t.

Lady Letitia would rather handle problems by herself. But when her despised husband is murdered and suspicion falls on her beloved (and missing) brother, Letitia knows that only Christian can help her now. She’s well aware of what he thinks of her and knows that this would be the perfect opportunity for him to gain revenge for her ‘desertion’, but the honor of her brother and family is at stake. There’s NOTHING she won’t do to gain Christian’s assistance.

I, like many of Laurens’ fans, had begun to feel her novels had become stale, that I was reading the same novel over and again, just with different characters. I’m glad to say that with only a few exceptions, this novel has the mystery and pacing and fire of her earlier works. Ms. Laurens is a master of description, at times she tends to go a bit overboard, but she sets a stage that allows the reader to practically ‘see’ the balls and gowns, and houses and streets of London. This pacing of this novel was also much better than previous ones. The intricacies of the relationship and the mystery were slowly unfurled at an even pace throughout the book. There were only a few times that I felt any kind of lag in the plot.

My only real complaint, and how shocking is this, is her handling of the love scenes. She writes with passion and sensuality as she always does, but I also felt she was a bit TOO ‘flowery’ in this book. It came dangerously close to ‘purple prose’ and it felt like her editors had requested her to make the love scenes longer, so she added adjectives. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still hot. It just felt more forced than her earlier works (and this is just MY opinion).

In any event, if you like regency romances and you haven’t read Stephanie Laurens, I really think you should. As her wildly popular ‘Cynster’ novels are now all first released in hardcover, these Bastion Club novels are the only paperback-first releases left for her fans. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Christian and Letitia and the battles they faced together and within themselves to finally come together after all their struggles and sacrifices. I’m also eagerly awaiting the last book of this series where the mystery of Dalziel will finally be revealed. His book which, according to her website, is “The Mysterious Dalziel” is to be released in Fall 2009. It’s already on my ‘buy’ list.

Til next time
JJ
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09/10/08

Amy rated it:

bookshelves: read-in-2008, romance, romance-stephanie-laurens

Read in September, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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02/26/09

Marian rated it:

Read in February, 2009

I've just finished rereading this book for a second time. I'm sorry to see that all the Bastian club members are now married but there is at least one more story to tell, and perhaps, two.

I've read reviews elsewhere that complain that the book is a bit slow and perhaps it is but this is my second read and I think that it was necessary for Letitia and Christian to work out the complication that is their lives. Laurens did this in a slow but by no means meaningless way. I appreciated ...more

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09/02/08

Maria rated it:

bookshelves: historical-romance

Read in September, 2008

I have been slowing down on reading Stephanie Laurens, since she has joined the writers who think frequent sentence fragmentation and unnecessary and additional paragraphs add something to the writing. As far as I can tell, it just makes the writing choppy. I wanted to at least finish the Bastion Club books before dropping her altogether, however. If you skip the sex scenes that add absolutely nothing to the plot and get very repetitive throughout the series (I regularly skip them in almost a...more

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10/21/08

Gail rated it:

bookshelves: historical-romance, romantic-suspense

Read in August, 2008

I liked this one better than I have a lot of Laurens books. I think perhaps because it had a really good mystery plot to go with a really good romance plot, and not so many love scenes that they got boring. (Yeah, I know.) The hero and heroine have a past. He thinks she threw him over for money. She thinks he abandoned her. They're both right, but there are Reasons (of course). When the book opens, the heroine has just come to beg the hero for help. Her husband's been found murdered in a locked ...more

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12/22/08

Shannon rated it:

bookshelves: anglophilia, historicalromance

Picked this up at the airport in Las Vegas out of desperation after missing my flight. To put it simply, this book is absolutely terrible. I passed it off to a friend who is a fan of earlier books by author Laurens and she thought it was awful too. Went directly to the donation pile. Really an awful book.

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10/01/08

Beate rated it:

bookshelves: chick-lit, historical-fiction, romance

Read in October, 2008

Obviously I've read this out of order. Or how the author intended the books to be read. I know Stephanie Laurens to be a good author from before, why I picked up this book to begin with. She writes good, and she keeps you captive and guessing all through to the very end - I had a hard time figuring out who the murderer was... But, yet again, I found myself skipping through the endless pages of descriptive sex... It just ruins a good book! If I want to read about sex, I'll bloody find a website t...more

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07/13/08

Manju rated it:

Read in June, 2009

It was ok. I was basically speed reading once I solved the mystery. Even the romance between Christian and Letitia did not hold my focus.
Unlike the other books in the series, this book seemed to focus more on the reunion of Christian and Letitia rather than the mystery(which was solved by the time the friends of the murdered man and the partnership came into picture - very poorly written).
When there was reference to the mysterious villain (who has been popping up in the other books ...more

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11/29/08

Barbra rated it:

bookshelves: historical

Read in December, 2008

This author keeps your interest with all of her inventive story lines. Although a lot of explicit sex this can be eliminated by reading the first sentence of each paragraph until you get back to the initial story.

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06/17/09

Regina Montenaro rated it:

This is one of the better books in this series. The character development is strong although the book's ending is a bit too contrived.

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03/22/09

Deanna rated it:

Read in December, 2008

This book has a great element of mystery to it!

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09/11/08

carlie rated it:

bookshelves: romance

Read in September, 2008

This book is a simple mystery story that hinges on characters continually saying, in effect, "I know the answer to your question, but am not going to tell you because I feel it isn't important", thereby provoking both the readers curiosity and another few chapters worth of fill.
The ploy worked, and I kept reading. A darling little who-done-it plot developed. I am interested in backtracking to read other books in this series. Especially if I never have to read page after page o...more

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09/01/08

Amy rated it:

Very enjoyable. As usual, a strong woman character. A little hard to believe that his faithful coconspirators have yet to discover Dalziel's real identity, particularly as the lead in to the next novel shows that his role in the ton would have made him extremely prominent, but it wsa an enjoyable read for a Labor Day weekend.

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07/06/08

Pj rated it:

bookshelves: read-2008, romance-historical

A fast-paced mystery with a sizzling hot love story and dialogue that leaps from the page, this book has all the critical elements of a story that will keep you turning pages late into the night. I think it's one of the best stories Stephanie Laurens has ever written.

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10/02/08

MB rated it:

bookshelves: mindless-romance-and-chic-lit

Read in October, 2008

The sex scenes took over the plot, but if you skim/skip them this is not a bad book.

(I liked the "Vaux temperment!" A nice, distinguishing characteristic to make Letitia stand out from the other Laurens' heroines.)

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10/25/08

Jessica rated it:

bookshelves: mushy--squishy--romantic-stuff

Ehh. The one really notable thing about the characters in this book: Christian actually admitted he was wrong - out loud, not in his inner monologue, mind you - AND he said "sorry." Nice fluff. Finished in a night.

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09/14/08

Sam rated it:

Just finished reading it and it was thrilling! I can't wait for the last one to come out, the tesaer at the end has definately left me on the edge of my seat.

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