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The Pleasures of Sin

by Jessica Trapp (Goodreads Author)

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 · rating details · 84 ratings · 17 reviews

SHE'LL GIVE HER HEART TO NO ONE ...

Banished to her family's castle tower for refusing to marry, Lady Brenna spends her days indulging her secret passion for painting provocative works of art. If they are discovered, Brenna knows she will hang. But her life changes the day England's most notorious privateer James Vaughn, the Earl of Montgomery, arrives to claim Brenna's you...more

Paperback, 343 pages

Published May 1st 2009 by Zebra (first published 2009)

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Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley

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Jun 18, 2012 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

While this was a face-paced book that kept me both interested and entertained, I am not able to give more than 3 stars. This has nothing to with the chains/humiliation aspect of the book and instead has to do with the following two things.

1. I was extremely disappointed in Lady Brenna's choice of loyalty in a key part of the book. She knew she was making the wrong choice -- and I can't say much more without giving part of the book away. This would have made it a 4 star book for me.

2. While we le...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, ipod-reads, fugly-covers, lmao

I felt super embarrassed reading this book. The cover is corny to the max, as is the title. I'll admit though that I kinda really liked this book. It wasn't earth-shattering material or all that well-written to be honest. The whole plot was a bunch of ridiculousness. That aside, it sure as hell was entertaining. It's a good book to read if you want a historical romance that is full of misunderstandings and randomness. The opening scene is actually the main character Brenna making a painting of h...more I felt super embarrassed reading this book. The cover is corny to the max, as is the title. I'll admit though that I kinda really liked this book. It wasn't earth-shattering material or all that well-written to be honest. The whole plot was a bunch of ridiculousness. That aside, it sure as hell was entertaining. It's a good book to read if you want a historical romance that is full of misunderstandings and randomness. The opening scene is actually the main character Brenna making a painting of her vagina. I seriously WTF'ed out loud when I read that. The entire book premise is basically the english king's outrage over nude paintings of his likeness being sold. The reason for the king's anger? It's made him a laughingstock because he was not painted with adequate size. So pretty much the storyline hinges on the king being upset because he was painted with a small penis. At this point, I decided to keep reading because I wanted to see if things could get anymore ridiculously wondeful.

I actually really liked Brenna. Weird erotic genital paintings aside haha, she was very likeable. She wasn't perfect and drop dead gorgeous. Not that I'm saying she looked like a hag or anything, but she had a wonderful firey personality. She could be stubborn, but she knew when to back off. Brenna wasn't one of those unnecessarily stupid heroines that go about being 'feisty'. I felt terrible for her life though. Her family was absolutely dreadful. I hated every last one of them. They were selfish beyond belief. Did they even like Brenna? It seemed like Brenna was only there for them to use to their benefit. Her sister begged her to marry James in her place and they all made some plan for Brenna to kill him when they got back to her chambers. They are all like 'Go Brenna!' when they want her to do something for them, but when shit hit the fan, they left her to face the firing squad. So many bad things happened to Brenna when she tried to protect her family and I wanted to tell her to leave them to die because they didn't deserve any kindness from her.

Brenna and James are without a doubt a disfunctional couple. She tried to murder him. He chained her up for a month. I didn't see how they were going to work out. James comes off like a psycho at times and he mistrusted Brenna at every turn. Brenna hates James' guts and is constantly plotting to escape from him. James was also known as the Enforcer, which I found amusing. That nickname plus his scary demeanor had me picturing him as some type of S&M master haha. James was cruel to Brenna and treated her terribly. However, for some reason I kind of wanted them to fall for one another. God knows why, but I liked the two of them together. I thought their interactions were unhealthy, but over the course of the book, I could kinda see them being a couple. The scene at the church was actually really cute and it showed a sweeter side to James. Of course, once they started getting along a big misunderstanding popped up and ruined all their progress. I found myself yelling at the book with frustration. I was so happy to see Brenna and James behaving like a normal loving couple and then her a-hole family members had to show up and ruin things.

Strangely, for a book with such a smutty title and cover, it wasn't all that smutty. There were a few sex scenes, but nothing all that explicit. Inside of being steamy, they just had me laughing. The way things were worded were awkward and lame. Some of these words and phrases included, 'manroot', 'jiggling globes of womanflesh', 'woman's core', etc. There was even one sentence that was worded something like 'Cream flowed freely from her woman's core', which had me laughing as well. What a nice image that made haha. This is the first book I've read where the foreplay consisted of the man shaving the woman's genitals. I'm sorry, but a man shearing off a girl's pubes with a dagger isn't sexy. At all.(less)

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Feb 11, 2012 Noelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, 2012-reads, alpha-male, great-love-scenes, held-captive-by-hero, herione-with-tortured-past, hero-with-a-tortured-past, historical, kidnapped-by-hero, scarred-heroine, the-big-misunderstanding, widowed-hero

4 1/2 **
This is the second book by Jessica Trapp that I have read and I've really enjoyed them both. I will definitely check out what else she has written.

Brenna (h) has been locked in her tower room for a year by her father because she refused to marry. All she wants to do is go to Italy, live in a convent and be an artist.......she loves to paint. When her sister was ordered by the King to marry she goes to her father and tells him that she can't marry a man who is scarred (as she has heard) a...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Lindsay rated it 1 of 5 stars

How can I put this. ANY non-consensual sex is still RAPE. A woman doesn't/shouldn't have to say the word "No" to show her disagreement. Chaining someone, holding them prisoner, humiliating them, and blackmailing them are all uses of force. It is books like this that give romance novels a bad name. The term "romance" says that we are supposed to get a love story, not a Stockholm syndrome story. There is nothing in this book that shows the redemption or regret of the hero so that we could accept h...more

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Nov 14, 2012 LizzieB rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 14th-century, artist-heroine, bdsm, christianity, ebook, england, english-heroine, historical-romance, independent-heroine, kensington, kindle, medieval, prickly-heroine, romance, tortured-hero, tragic-past-heroine, zebra, badly-edited

This is 14th Century The Wolf and the Dove (Kathleen Woodiwiss) fanfic—without the rape. It's also trying to be feminist and enlightened.

But that's not my main problem. My main problem is how badly it's edited. I wouldn't have cared about the fanfic or enlightenment aspect because, hey, I think the idea of a feisty redheaded heroine painting naughty pictures in the 14th Century is kinda fun. And I have no doubt there was probably a woman or two who did just that way back in the day. It's the ed...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Eastofoz rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers who don't mind a lot of silly misunderstandings & a sometimes unforgivable hero

Shelves: medieval

This book has all the makings of a good book: medieval, forced marriage, h/h detest each other, some interesting steam for a historical, but the writer just can’t bring it altogether for a decent read. It wavers between 2.5 to 3 stars for me.

Brenna and James have to marry because the king said so. James is known as The Enforcer because he gets the king’s dirty work done. Brenna is a free spirit, hopes to run off and paint at a nunnery in Italy. Her dad is an ass and some kind of traitor so the k...more This book has all the makings of a good book: medieval, forced marriage, h/h detest each other, some interesting steam for a historical, but the writer just can’t bring it altogether for a decent read. It wavers between 2.5 to 3 stars for me.

Brenna and James have to marry because the king said so. James is known as The Enforcer because he gets the king’s dirty work done. Brenna is a free spirit, hopes to run off and paint at a nunnery in Italy. Her dad is an ass and some kind of traitor so the king confiscates his property and forces James to marry the daughter to put the family back on the straight and narrow. James and Brenna start our their marriage hating each other. He chains her up and acts like a jerk to her as they get to know each other. So a pretty decent story basis but it’s mired down by faulty grammar, repetition of the same words over and over and over again (her woman’s core, for certes, zwounds -a great word to use to make the situation seem even dumber than what it is-, ninny, to name a few that pop up every few paragraphs –thesaurus anyone?!) and ‘fake’ sounding old English –you know how you can just tell that the author is trying too hard with the language and it comes out stilted, well that happened a lot. It’s all bogged down with exclamation marks everywhere which makes it feel like you’re reading a silly older style stereotypical romance. There’s no gravity to a situation, it’s just eye-roll worthy. There are some parts where some editing was needed because you have two conversations but the sentences aren’t separated to indicate a change in speaker so you think it’s the same person speaking which is very confusing.

Then there’s the 256 302 idiotic misunderstandings, misinterpretations, jumping to conclusions, flying off the the handle for no sane reason for just about everything. These people could not have a two second conversation without someone suspecting something about the other and instead of asking they’d get all grumpy/pouty and not talk making the problem snowball into something way bigger than what it originally was. This led the heroine to expound 24/7 “how unfair the lot of women” is. Brenna is set up a pretty good spitfire heroine but she turns into a doormat because a-hole James punishes her by whipping her, nearly beheads her in a rage on their wedding night because she slapped him one (which he soooo deserved), chains her, calls her a whore one time too many, ignores her and some other stuff. Now yeah it’s a medieval and you get this kind of stuff but enough is enough. Brenna the ‘hellcat’ never got out from under his thumb and that’s something I hate that an author does. She never once really had the upper hand which makes for a frustrating read. After the last time he called her a whore she should’ve hightailed it to the nunnery and just lived there, letting him wallow in his misery. Sure he was good between the sheets and the author tried to experiment with some risqué stuff too, but it just didn’t work within the framework of the story. So there are pieces that are a 3 or a 4 star but overall if you can’t tie it together to make it appear to be seamless it comes across as clunky.

As for James, he’s a brute but he’s sly and smart and sexy (except for his snaggle tooth –this must be the latest endearing characteristic for alpha heroes –totally ruins the image for me. Find another ‘imperfection’ but not that). He’s too high handed and the author doesn’t balance that with Brenna so it’s an uneven story. The hero can be a Mr Dominant SOB and the heroine can be a harpy but I don’t think you can have the same one come out on top all the time and have the characters be likeable. Oh and then of course they magically and quite suddenly love each other too at the end: “I love you!” “I love you too!” "Oh how I love you!" (gag reflex kicking in) Stuuupid :-/ They barely spent time with each other out of bed and when they did it was a rag central hurling some nasty insults too. Not my kind of love story.

The story is disappointing on a lot of levels. There are some good parts but not enough to say it’s a good book – oh yeah and right up to the last page practically another big misunderstanding reared its ugly head –gawd. End the freakin’ book already and be done with it!
(less)

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Mar 24, 2012 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, naughty-romance

Interesting. Romance blooming out of a forced marriage where both parties more or less hate each other, but experience a great attraction to one another. Even with their dislike for each other, the attraction allows them to lower their guards and begin to see each other for what they are, not what they were told about them. Although, trust and mistrust continue to be both built up and torn down, the attraction-turned-love overcomes in the end.

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Dec 17, 2012 Mei rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical

The premise is good and the story should be interesting, but for me just fell flat. The heroine was too naive in trusting her family (I still don't understand why her sisters were so adamant to keep her from the hero...). The idea about erotic painings is interesting, but I didn't get why a monk will help her selling them...
Also, the pardon by the king is a little bit unbelievable.
It could have been done better...

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Feb 08, 2012 Kelly Crites rated it 4 of 5 stars

I downloaded this book for fre from amazon, as i do with all my books, and i would have given it 5 stars but it left me wanting more. more love scenes or more ....something! i liked the book but it felt like the middle part of the book was ripped out and i only read the beginning and the end. but hey i got it for free and finished it in a couple hours-in between doing laundary and corralling my three yr old :-)

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Nov 22, 2012 Maya rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: paperback

Read this book just for the crazy ideas that the protagonist has about male anatomy - which she is obsessively painting and which gets her in trouble. It comes handy in the end as part of a unique "get out of jail free" scheme. Funny book! Set in 13th or 14th century Britannia - you can figure out the exact time by looking up the royals.

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Jun 30, 2011 Tonileg rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: romance, historical

This had too many misunderstandings for me not to become intensely frustrated. I wanted to shake everyone and scream!
Brenna had to have to worse family and everyone was incredibly selfish that it became annoying. I almost didn't finish. When I did there was a sigh of relief and I'm now going to take a break from historical romance for a while.

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Jan 25, 2012 Cassie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook

It was like every other trashy dime store novel that I've read and, because of that, I loved it. :)

I gave it a three because it was like every other trashy dime store novel, but I would gladly read it again when and if the mood struck me.

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Jan 29, 2012 Baseball4mandi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Silly. Trashy. Fun.

Okay, honestly, it's as cheesy as the title/cover makes it seem.

I too thought that family was super annoying. I feel like the hop back and forth between the point of views was confusing.

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Feb 01, 2012 Jeanette Hornby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: from-dec-2011-to-now, 4-stars-plus

I enjoyed the tension between the main characters in the novel, and thought the story was unique and interesting. A page turner.

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Oct 22, 2010 Helen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book James and Brenna both tortured and so many twists and turns on their adventure (and what an adventure it was) to their HEA. Great story

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Jun 15, 2012 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good book & it was a quick read.

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Jan 24, 2012 Pamela Craft Jenewein is currently reading it

Shelves: het-stories

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Jun 16, 2013 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

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Shelves: 1-s-rom-novels-i-own

May 03, 2013 Adriana marked it as purchased · review of another edition

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Apr 10, 2013 Adriele Santana rated it 5 of 5 stars

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Mar 24, 2013 Elena rated it 1 of 5 stars

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