Delectably Undone!: A Scandalous Liaison / Pleasured by the Viking / The Captain's Wicked Wager / The Samurai's Forbidden Touch / Arabian Nights with a Rake
A collection of five sensual stories. History has never been so hot!A Scandalous Liaison by Elizabeth RollsViscount St. Austell has never forgotten the illicit night he shared with Loveday Trehearne. Now, as mystery surrounds her, he's going to rediscover all her sensuous curves….Pleasured by the Viking by Michelle WillinghamInnocent Auder Ó Reilly's afraid she won't satisfy her husband-to-be in the marriage bed. So Viking Gunnar Dalrata offers to show her the pleasures of making love….The Captain's Wicked Wager by Marguerite KayeCaptain Ewan Dalgleish makes Isabella Mansfield a scandalous in return for the money she needs, she must spend three nights with him….The Samurai's Forbidden Touch by Ashley RadcliffThe only love and adventure Miku's found is in her poetry. But left alone with samurai warrior Takeshi, tantalizing new cravings are aroused….Arabian Nights with a Rake by Bronwyn ScottSusannah Sutcliffe is held captive in a Bedouin camp. To escape, she must convince handsome English diplomat Alex Grayfield to rescue her-by seducing him!
We live in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, in a beautiful lush valley full of apple, pear and cherry orchards. We moved here a couple of years back, escaping from the city and it’s just gorgeous. The property is small, only five acres, but we have room for two small noisy boys, three dogs, two cats and several woolly things masquerading a environmentally friendly lawnmowers. Before that we lived in Melbourne, which was fun, but we always wanted to live in the country and now we do.
I’ve been married to an ex-nuclear physicist – don’t ask! for the last 17 years and we have two rowdy little boys, commonly described as “feral”. Most of our friends think we have far too many animals, and everyone knows we have far too many books.I grew up moving around a fair bit. Dad was in the army and every few years we had to up sticks and move on. I was born in England, expelled from kindergarten in Melbourne, started school in Papua New Guinea and finished school in Melbourne. After taking a degree in Music Education I taught music for several years while my husband finished his Ph.D.
How I started writing I had the writing bug from a very early age. From the time I could read I loved writing stories. Throughout my school days I was nearly always writing something very quietly, and there were several teachers who encouraged me. One student teacher, whose name I have totally forgotten, when I was in sixth grade, as well as a couple of high school English teachers, Mrs Redman and Mrs Mackay.
I started writing my first book after I finished my Masters degree. For one thing I really, really missed my thesis. I’d enjoyed researching it, and I loved writing it. So it seems inevitable now that when I was looking for something to do in the evenings to unwind after work, I started writing again.
I’d been staying with an old school friend. Meg is a fellow Georgette Heyer fan, and she had a very large collection of Regencies on her bookshelves. Well, that was an eye-opener. I’d had no idea anyone else apart from Heyer had actually written them. By the time I went home I had an idea floating around in my brain and I sat down and roughed out some sort of chapter plan. Then I started typing. Six months later I had a story with a beginning a middle and an end which I sent to Meg. After a great deal of talking, she persuaded me to send it off to Harlequin Mills & Boon. After doing the rounds of all three editorial offices and undergoing a major rewrite and extension while I was about seven months pregnant with the second small noisy boy, it was accepted for publication and published as The Unexpected Bride.
Most of my writing friends have threatened to lynch me over that story at one time or another. Personally I envy them for having learnt an enormous amount about writing and the industry before acquiring an editor who understandably expects you to know what you are doing.
This collection of historical erotic shorts was a mixed bag. Some of the stories were very enjoyable, but others were definitely misses for me.
A Scandalous Liaison by Elizabeth Rolls - 3 stars
Evelyn, Viscount St. Austell and Loveday Trehearne were childhood friends until one night of passion changed everything. When Loveday's brother, Lionel, realized that Evelyn couldn't marry her because she was too lowborn for him, they left for Italy and have only recently returned. Lionel is now painting a mural for Evelyn, and Evelyn and Loveday are once again being drawn together.
There's nothing particularly new or original about this story line, but I enjoyed it. Rolls has an excellent way with words, and the story's tone was very dark and erotic. The passion between the leads was evident, but I didn't feel much romance or love between them which dragged the story down.
Pleasured by the Viking by Michelle Willingham - 2 stars
Gunnar knew Auder when she was a child. He's now returned to her home to find her grown into a beautiful woman preparing to marry a Norman baron to protect her people. Before she leaves though, she asks him to teach her about passion, and they both realize that they don't want Auder to marry the baron.
This story plays into one of my least favorite tropes, where the heroine has only ever had sex once in her life, and it sucked, so she thinks it sucks, but the hero is here to educate her about the power of orgasms. I don't care for it because it feels a little like having your cake and eating it too. The heroine isn't a virgin, but she's still virginal and needs to be actually introduced to the magic of sex via the hero's magic dong. I'd rather have the heroine have had positive sexual experiences than this. Also, Auder was an unmarried, highborn woman, and she just decided to have sex with a random guy to see what it was all about. That just felt like a very modern view of sex and rang false me. I also didn't care for Gunnar pursuing a relationship with another woman while also going after Auder.
The Captain's Wicked Wager by Marguerite Kaye - 4 stars
Isabella Mansfield needs a lot of money very quickly in order to save her family. She attempts to win it through gambling, but ends up in debt to Ewan Dalgleish instead. He agrees that instead of money, she can repay him through a game: for three nights, they'll play dice, and the loser has to do whatever the winner wants.
This was a very steamy short story, and probably my favorite of the collection. Isabella's characterization didn't totally work for me, and this was a definite case of instalove, but Kaye is a strong writer, and I enjoyed her addition to the collection greatly.
The Samurai's Forbidden Touch by Ashley Radcliff - 2 stars
Miku is a young poet and the niece of a nobleman. Recently, she has grown rebellious, so her uncle has left to find her a husband. While he is gone, she is left under the care of Takeshi, one of his samurai. Instead of simply protecting her though, the two of them end up having an affair.
I liked the sexual part of this story. The parts outside of that didn't appeal to me as much. I thought that political/rebellion story was solved too easily, and I questioned whether or not it actually would be too easy. I also didn't like Miku that much. Takeshi was a bit better, but still not my favorite hero.
Arabian Nights with a Rake by Bronwyn Scott - 4 stars
Alex Grayfield is on a mission for the British government to investigate the situation in Morocco and see if it's worthwhile for them to support Abd al-Qadir's uprising against the French. While at a moussem meeting with some tribes, he meets Susannah Sutcliffe. Her father had been sent on the same mission as Alex, but he and everyone else they traveled with ended up getting murdered, and she was taken as a slave. Now, the sheik that owns her is getting tired of waiting to have her, and she views Alex as a way to freedom and to home.
Another really good story. I've enjoyed some of Scott's other stories, and this was no different. I did think that Alex and Susannah ended up in bed together too soon especially considering what had happened to Susannah. However, I liked both them, and the high stakes story line. I also liked the strong historical context. Even in full length novels, the story could take place at almost any time, so it was nice, and a bit surprising, to see such attention to history in a novella. Another case of instalove, but like Kaye, Scott can make it work.
A Scandalous Liaison – Elizabeth Rolls – 4/5 – Evelyn, Viscount Austell was a careless youth when he dishonorably (although unintentionally) seduced his friend’s younger sister, Loveday. Being of different classes, marriage was not possible, and so Evelyn stayed away. Now 6 years later, having commissioned a painting from her brother, Evelyn is confronted with Loveday again. Only he’s older and smarter now and he can’t stop thinking about her. This was an excellent little story. You feel Evelyn’s guilt, his love and definitely their passion. The sexy murals were a cute touch. Still, the story required a bit of suspension of disbelief. A near virgin giving the hero a BJ? Eh, probably not. And the names…although it was explained that the hero was Evelyn and it was a boy’s name at the time, I kept reading the name and thinking it was the heroine for some reason.
Pleasured by the Viking- Michelle Willingham – 3/5 – Auder is betrothed to a Baron for an alliance, but finds herself attracted to Gunnar, who was her friend 4 years ago, before she went traveling. He’s stayed away recently, fighting his attraction to her. But when she asks about how to pleasure her husband, he’s tempted to show her. This one was just sort of average for me. I don’t feel like we get to know the characters, they supposedly have a history, but they feel a bit like strangers. Also, the problem seemed resolved rather too easily as well. And the ending was a bit rushed and anti-climactic…well, figuratively it was anyway.
The Captain’s Wicked Wager – Marguerite Kaye – 2/5 - Isabella is out of funds and wagers everything she has on a card game, but finds herself indebted to Ewan Dalsleigh, a scandalous rake. He offers her a wager – a roll of the dice the winner gets to command the other to do anything they say. As sexy as this story is, I was somewhat disturbed by the lack of honor or even decency in Ewan and Isabella’s inability to see what she’s actually doing. At first she says she can’t be bought – that she’s not a courtesan. But then, by agreeing to the wager, she is in fact allowing herself to be bought. So yeah. And Ewan. He basically buys this woman (money in exchange for the wager) and when he wins the bet he seduces her that same night. No hesitations, no regrets and no acknowledging that she’s a virgin. He does in fact turn her into a prostitute. And he only feels a kernel of guilt over it. Not much in the way of honor with this guy I think. So because I couldn’t really respect the characters and there’s no real reflection on their own behavior, I can’t say I enjoyed the story. And really, I don’t buy them falling in love since all they did was fuck.
The Samurai’s Touch – Ashley Radcliffe – 3/5 - I’ve studied Japanese history extensively, so I’m always wary about romances set in Japan (at least their few and far between) because the historical inaccuracies would bug me. Not to mention that medieval Japan is, IMHO one of the least romantic settings on earth. And this story, about Miku, a poetess and niece of the nobleman in charge and the samurai Takeshi has a few of those inaccuracies that bug…for example, Samurai class were not necessarily commoners – they had to be wealthy in order to buy their weapons and armor, so they did not come from the peasant class. Also, I didn’t much care for all of the power play – surrender and submission and all that. Not my cup of tea.
Arabian Nights with a Rake – Nikki Poppen - 3/5 - Susannah has been held captive by the Bedouin sheikh for 6 months. Then, Alex Grayfield and his friend Crispin happen into camp on a political mission. Susannah and Alex fall into lust and then love and plan an escape. This one was interesting, but I didn’t care much for the romance. Susannah is willing to risk death to escape sex with the sheikh, but gives up her virginity to Alex within an hour of meeting him…and he doesn’t even know who she is. And through all of this the characters feel like strangers – we learn so little about them. And then they fall in love after two nights together (more like two sessions of sex). It made no sense because how could they have learned anything about each other in that amount of time. I admit, the author does a lot of telling instead of showing, so maybe that’s when it happened.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
It's hard to rate an anthology fairly, especially when there are really good stories interspersed with some mediocrity. Regardless, overall this book does a fine job in historical romance shorts, and the scope of the backgrounds - from medieval Ireland to pre-Shogunate Japan and then back to the jaded drawing rooms of Regency London - are commendable.
"A Scandalous Liaison" by Elizabeth Rolls - 2 stars
An aristocrat commisions erotic wallpaintings for his newly inherited mansion and discovers the painter is an old friend he ruined six years earlier. She, of course, is still in love with him. He didn't seem to have thought a whit about her in the intervening years, except perhaps to snarl at his jellied eels in discontent. Bah! I did not like Evelyn, Viscount St. Austell, nor did I like the easy way they rectified their situation.
"Pleasured by the Viking" by Michelle Willingham - 3 stars
I've read Willingham before and enjoy her medievals. This was a good one, too, about an Irish maiden who offers herself to a Norman lord but secretly loves her Viking neighbor.
"The Captain's Wicked Wager" by Marguerite Kaye - 3 stars
For a Harlequin, this one is sexually explicit with a touch of bondage and heavy on the gambling. Not for the morally pure.
"The Samurai's Forbidden Touch" by Ashley Radcliff - 3 stars
I had a hard time relating to this one, simply because the setting was so foreign to me that I kept asking myself if this were realistic. I've watched enough samurai movies, but never anything was a samurai romantic lead and a poetess/noblewoman. Very intersting, however.
"Arabian Nights with a Rake" by Bronwyn Scott - 3 stars
This was a fun one, about a Englishwoman captured in the North African desert and her daring rescue by an English diplomat's son.
The stories were okay. I just didn't find any of them compelling. It took me a while to finish it, because I would stop and read another book and go back to it.
Anthology, five romantic stories. An Ok read, almost 3,5 Stars. Elizabeth Rolls´ A Scandalous Liaison brings together two former lovers through misunderstanding and other obstacles. Michelle Willingham´s Pleasured by the Viking, Auder has promised to give herself in marriage to the norman neighbor but is that really what she wants? And when will Gunnar realize he wants her? Marguerite Kaye´s the Captain´s Wicked Wager, Isabella needs money to bail out her brother from an inherited debt and Ewan steps up to save her. Ashley Radcliff´s The Samurai´s Forbidden Touch, the samurai Takeshi is supposed to guard masters niece Miku lest she´s running away before being married off. Bronwyn Scott´s Arabian Nights with a Rake, Susannah is a prisoner of the Sheik, could she be saved by the diplomat Alex?
A fun collection of novellas from a number of different HQ authors. Most were well done. However, the borderline forced seductions in two of the stories made it difficult to really root for the hero or believe in the suddent jump from lust to love.
WONDERFUL AND PASSIONATE SHORT LOVE STORIES, WITH INTERESTING CHARACTERS, LEARNING THE ART OF PASSIONATE LOVEMAKING. MY FAVORITE ONE WAS CALLED, "THE CAPTAIN'S WICKED WAGER"