I've never written a Bad Review and it pains me to start now, but I won Wicked Intentions in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway and so I am tasked with the duty of an honest review. I also hope to forewarn people interested in reading Wicked Intentions that it is for mature adults only . In reading other reviews here on Goodreads it doesn't seem to be a concern of others, but I found the "bedroom scenes" (a politically incorrect statement considering that not all of them occurred in a bedroom - just sayin') to be written in an invasive and vulgar way, without any emotional investment from the characters. There are romances and then there are Romances. This is absolutely a Romance, and I encourage readers to consider their own personal level of modesty before reading. That being said, I had other issues with the book which I will now address. I can only apologize to Miss Hoyt (who, if I were to judge by the About-the-Author at the back of the book, seems to be a charming and sweet lady) for any offense toward her art. I'm only supplying my own personal opinions here.

Wicked Intentions, Elizabeth Hoyt's Georgian mystery-romance and the first in her new Maiden Lane series, has a lot of problems. What it all comes down to for me is that the book is confused. It doesn't seem to know where its destination is or how it's going to get there. That's a frustrating thing for a reader. Even the book's cover is searching for its true identity; the outside shows us the dramatic but charmingly illustrated cover of a period Gothic novel, and yet one look at the inside shows us the secondary, more suggestive cover which gives you a sudden and better insight into what sort of Romance you’re about to start reading.

The characters are equally confused and equally confusing. Lady Hero, sister of the Duke of Wakefield, is like something out of Austen: kind, intelligent, good-humored, poised, level-headed and confident, all-in-all the perfect heroine. Only she isn't the heroine of this book. She's the heroine of the next book in the series, Notorious Pleasures. She seems lost in this story, standing back in the shadows before being brought out to outshine all the other characters with her perfection – including, it would seem, the far less perfect true heroine, Temperance Dews. Temperance is at first displayed as a demure, sensitive woman who is struggling to support a cause she believes in. Towards the end of the book, however, we find that she has become the contrary and that her struggles were rather the result of a weak character than true belief. She is suddenly intensely dark, brooding and depressed and we the readers are left to wonder how she got that way. Try as I might I could not find a great significant occurrence in the book that would lead to such a change.

The same happens to Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire. He is the hero of the story, and he seems to spend the entire book struggling with the weight of such a job. I fancy a good Byronic hero – from Charlotte Bronte's Edward Rochester to Jane Austen's Frederick Wentworth – but Caire doesn’t seem to know quite how to go about being Byronic. He is at first offensive, crude and dark which contrasts wildly with Temperance’s initial virtuous martyrdom, causing us to wonder from where their mutual attraction stems, but in the same missed moment when Temperance becomes unlikable Caire takes a turn in the opposite direction. He is suddenly lighter of heart, heroically selfless and in touch with his emotions.

Confusing. Also unexplained is Caire’s aversion to being touched. Throughout the book we are met with the dramatic reality that physical contact with others causes him pain, but when finally the question "Physically or mentally?" is asked we get only this answer: Both. Insufficient explanation is not fair to the readers when the issue can very nearly be considered its own plot point. The other question, "Why?" does not seem to be asked at all. We're left to assume it has something to do with the father who he so distains for the first half of the book before that part of his history suddenly seems to become uninteresting to the writer. Caire is also the most historical character in the novel. Others, including Temperance, begin to drift out of history and into the characteristics of the modern world, leaving Caire in his tricorn hat and heavy black cloak to seem like an apparition or a romantic hero brought out of the past.

The story is unable to reach its full potential, restrained by its secondary position to the attraction and resulting scenes of Caire and Temperance. Several plot threads flap around and we grab at them spastically, finding all of them much more interesting than the bedroom antics of the two unlikable main characters. When finally we feel that we can't take any more of the Romance the mystery of the story's plot comes to save us, but its climax seems to go from half-hearted to melodramatic to cheesy before we're thrust back into yet another bedroom scene.

All-in-all, Wicked Intentions hides an interesting storyline beneath tawdry romance and thin, unemotional characters. Certain mysteries in the plot are left unrevealed, but there isn't enough likability to the book as a whole to guarantee that the reader will be back for the next installment.

It occurs to me that my review is decidedly negative and I feel it's necessary to add that there were certainly good points to the story. Miss Hoyt is a very visual writer and there are times when the seedy, almost Dickensian town of St. Giles seems to pop to life in the reader's mind. She also has the ability to write charming, memorable characters such as the aforementioned Lady Hero and the dockside thief known as Charming Mickey. However, the good points of Wicked Intentions were far outweighed by the multitude of things I disliked and so I'm forced to put the book away with a disappointed shake of the head and an unsatisfied furrowing of the brow.

If anyone who happens to read this rather ridiculously long review has any recommendations for other novels by Elizabeth Hoyt that are perhaps more along the lines of a PG-13 rating and with a bit more character and plot development, I would be interested to know. I never like to judge a writer by one poor experience, but I'm not inclined to venture blindly into another book for the sake of redemption.