Lorraine Heath „In Bed with the Devil“ (Teuflisch Verführt) (The Scoundrels of St. James #1) – 5***** @Lorraine_Heath

The first time in ages I decided to buy a book in German again, a paperback. I read plays and classical literature for work so I need something different in my time off. I love Regency Romance, Crime & Suspense and some erotic stuff by writers like Sylvia Day or Maya Banks.

So this time I bought the German version of “In bed with the Devil” (German: Teuflisch verführt) by Lorraine Heath. I haven’t read some romance in German in ages, at least it seems like it to me so I had to get into it again. But I finished the book within a day. It’s the first book of the series named “The Scoundrels of St. James”

So let’s get to the story….

Years ago, when Lady Catherine Mabry was 17, she held eye contact with a man at a ball who is called “the devil” because of his heritage. It’s said that he murdered his uncle when he was a child. His parents had been murdered too and his grandfather got him out of the prison because he was an aristocrat and his heir. Now she is older, still unmarried because she’s too stubborn.

She risks more than her reputation when she visits him one night and asks him to murder somebody for her. She doesn’t tell him that it is her best friend’s abusive husband. Not one person in the ton respects him nor talks to him so he is a little suspicious when she doesn’t tell him whom she wants to see dead. But he offers her a deal, after he kissed her, if she gives the woman – Frannie -he loves in aristocratic manners and lifestyle, he’d kill the person. Frannie is a simple person, she does the books in a gambling hell. She’s one of the kids he grew up with on the streets, one he always cared about.

Of course soon he finds out that he feels completely different about Catherine than about Frannie because she challenges him in every thinkable way. And they kiss and …

It’s easily said that this book was an easy read, I couldn’t put it aside except for luncheon. I started around breakfast and finished it in the bath tub because I needed to do some stuff for work in between – at least I told myself that’s the reason why I saw at my PC.

Nevertheless I loved the character development of the book. She slow way Lucian/ Luke realizes that Frannie make be the person he adores and cares about but he is in love with Catherine and it’s not about social status or anything like that. It’s about the passion inside him, the fact that he has to think about her all the time even if he doesn’t want to.

Plus the story about the abusive husband – I liked the fact that the wife, Catherine’s friends always says that he s allowed to do everything because the law says so. In my small world, if it comes to the 18^th and 19^th century it was like that.

I always thought: okay how is Catherine really like. How are her features? She has blond hair and a soft skin that’s everything we learn about her, and breasts of course. I always like to have more information but that’s only for my wild imagination.

I really enjoyed reading it and it was nice reading something in German again. I’ve a friend who only reads in German, so I’ll hand it over to her when I see her next.

Rating: 5*****

Robin Schone „Scandalous Lovers“ (Men and Women Club #1) – 3*** @RobinSchone

More than once I said to my friend that one or the other dialogue is really stupid and it is true, more than once I wanted to put it down and read something else.

Yes, it’s a typical Schone book because the story has LOTS of parallels with “A Lady’s Tutor”, too many in my opinion.

Frances walks into a meeting of the Men & Woman Club without knowing their goals and she answers a question asked by James Whitcox. She’s end 40s, mother and grandmother and a widow of several months – not long enough in her son’s opinion for not wearing mourning colors – and she moved to London to live her life. Her honesty makes the members of the club talk because they haven’t heard somebody’s opinion on things that clearly. Nobody ever talks about needs of a woman and what a woman wants but Frances does.

It’s a secret club and within the next couple of weeks/ meetings Frances is voted into the club and they start to talk more openly about erotica, they look at French cards, visit the secret parts of a book shop and Frances starts a relationship with James.

The erotic scenes are far away from being erotic or romantic, at least most of them. Most are bretty blunt and so not Schone’s style. In my opinion even Frances is a bad copy (at least her optical features) from Elizabeth Petre, or do all woman in her mid/end-40s look the same?

One day James buys a house for them and always speaks of “their house” but they aren’t a couple they only have a sexual relationship and aren’t about to get married. So why can they not spend time at her or his “old” place? He sleeps at his rooms at the court most of the time but he has to have a normal room somewhere anyway. That’s rather strange in my opinion.

Also the dialogues about sex toys and things like that seem to be abstruse, if it is forbidden you cannot go into a library and find those items that easily in a normal bookshop especially if it is forbidden, against the law, illegal.

I was quite disappointed in the end.

If you want to read a book by Robin Schone it has to be „A Lady’s Tutor“ – it’s the best.

S. Quinn „Passion. Leidenschaftlich begehrt“ / SK. Quinn „The ICE Seduction“ (#1 ICE-Series) – 5***** @SK_Quinn

I read this one during my trip to Sicily on the beach within a day (in German) and I loved it. It is a mix of erotic (devotion – Mf) and a little bit of crime/thriller. I have read the “Ivy” Series by S.Quinn a couple of years ago and liked it so I was quite open minded but this book was different, very different.
Seraphina is a young woman, early 20s, and works as a Nanny. With the money she makes she pays for her (half-)sisters ballet school. She’s talented but when she tells her late employer that she doesn’t want to be touched, she loses her job. His wife looks away. Looking for a new Nanny position, without any special training but being a natural, she asks her manager for a new position, she’d do everything.

So the manager offers her a position with the family of Lord Mansfield, in Scotland. Seraphina isn’t sure about Scotland because of the distance to the school her sister attends. Anyway, she takes the position because the boy and the extra payment.

When she arrives in Scotland she is confronted with a housekeeper who doesn’t want her at the castle nor near the boy because her daughter shall marry Lord Mansfield. The Lord himself, a former military man, has strong rules and they have to be followed. And the boy, the boy (about 5 years old) is not speaking nor is he eating anything besides licorice and a milk.

Seraphina quickly understands that the boy needs help and she wants do to everything to help him but she has to follow the rules and work her way around the housekeeper …

It’s a very good mixture of erotic and crime because things happened in the past and happen in the present, strange things. It’s a book you can read within a bunch of hours because you do not want to put it aside. The sex scenes are Mf-style, dominance and devotion. But there is a big story around it so the sexual relations aren’t in the center of the book, at least they weren’t for me.

It’s a really good story, highly recommended. I already ordered book number 2.

Robin Schone „The Lover“ (Lover #1) – 3*** @RobinSchone

„The Lover“ is a book by Robin Schone. After reading “The Lady’s Tutor” I wanted to read more by her because I was fascinated by the novel.

It’s the story of Anne Aimes and Michel des Anges. She’s 36 and still a spinster. Not even a year ago her parents died whom she had nursed over the years because she was an only child and felt responsible for them. Soon she realizes that they never had needed a daughter but a nurse because they were quite old when they got her.

So now having her dowry, a rather large one, she wants to feel passion, infirmity and finds Michel des Anges, her solicitor arranges a contract with him – one month of sex for 10.000 pounds. They meet in the House of Gabriel and when Anne sees Michel she doesn’t find him repellent. He has burns on his hands and neck. Years ago women were paying him money to sleep with them, nowadays he was paying them that’s why he is astonished by Anne’s offer. Nevertheless he had signed the contract and he learns that she doesn’t care about his scars because she has seen him what seems a lifetime ago, during her first season, in the year he was brought to society too. Within a few moments she decides do move in with him for this month …

But it wouldn’t be a Schone novel if things wouldn’t get complicated!

All women he is with since the fire were killed. For quite a long time the reader doesn’t know what happens or why but slowly it develops, things are exposed. And there is Gabriel, the second angel – Gabriel the archangel. He’s Michel’s best friend but can he be trusted?

Things grow more acute through the 2^nd half of the book and more complicated. There is death, illusion and tricks are played. But there is also passion.

After reading “The Lady’s Tudor” I was in love with Schone but this one was kind of average. Next to the “sex relationship” I felt like reading the 2^nd part of a series and “The Lover” isn’t a 2^nd part but a first. I don’t know why but I felt like I was missing quite a few things in the beginning that were told later in the story but it felt more like re-telling things you already told in a first book.

The ending respectively the conclusion of the case/book was quite a surprise. I don’t want to spoiler anything but I would never have thought that this one person did all those things and that he was somebody else as we thought he’d be. Camouflaging and deception.

I’ve already “Gabriel’s Women” on my bookshelf and will give it a chance as soon as I have finished several other to-be-reads.

Rating: 3***

Nicola Cornick – „Dauntsey Park. The Last Rake in London“ (Bluestocking Brides #4) – 5***** @nicolacornick

Reading in the Italian sun is great. I really have to say that here because I am sitting on a friend’s balcony and am about to write this review.

I read quite a few Nicola Cornick novels lately and I thought I knew her style so I started to read, not thinking about the timeframe of the book. And suddenly I was like: Cars? Shut the front door there were no cars in the Regency Era. So I headed back to page one and suddenly I noticed that I am in complete different time.

This is the 4th in the „Bluestocking Brides“ series.

June 1908 – A man notices a young, beautiful woman at the Wallace exhibition in London. They talk a little bit. She isn’t that typical kind of beautiful but he is fascinated by her from the very first moment. They see a few paintings, also of his family.

A minimum of time later Jack Kestrel arrives at a nightclub to speak to Sally Bowes about a case of blackmailing. But when he is brought into the room, he realizes that he is standing in front of the woman he talked to the day before. But she is dressed differently, doing some accounting on her nightclub “The Blue Parrot”.

The club isn’t a shallow establishment but a place where people can play cards and drink champagne, even the king does. Sally had inherited the house years ago but couldn’t pay for its maintenance without using it so she established this club. Married before all that, quite unhappily, she decided to go her own after her divorce already hurt her reputation badly.

Kestrel on the other side just came back from fighting in the army after the “so said killed” his first big love – Merle. The only woman he ever loved. He doesn’t want to be interested in Sally but solve the blackmailing his frail uncle has to survive. But it isn’t Sally who us behind it but her younger sister Connie – Constance and it’s apparently not the first scandal she is involved in.

Sally lives for her two sisters – Connie and Nell. The first all about money and lovers. The second a suffragette taking care of imprisoner’s children but always in the debts.

As the story goes on, Connie about to get married to Jack’s cousin, they had to Charlie’s home, Jack’s sister. Without knowing they get themselves into Aunt Ottoline’s birthday party weekend and pose as an engaged couple.

Honestly said I haven’t watched “Downtown Abbey” yet and I am not sure if I ever will. I am more the “Castle” kind of type, I love the Beckett-Castle chemistry. BUT to read some story that is taking place in the early 20^th Century was quite a change after all the Regency novels I inhaled lately.

My favorite line of the book – and those do not always exist – is:

“As kong as you support the right of women to have the vote, then I am sure there shall be no problem,” Sally said smiling.

“I try,” Greg said, “but when I think of your sister Connie having the right of suffrage ….”

“Well”, Sally said, “if it comes to that, I need only think of the likes of Bertie deciding the future of the country ….”

Without knowing too much about Connie and Bertie – and I am quite thankful for that because I wouldn’t have liked the characters at all – it brings their inner values to a point. You cannot like Connie nor Bertie but you have to love Aunt Ottoline, Charlie, Sally and Jack.

I really have to the other “Bluestocking Brides” books a look when I am back home. I read mostly on my kindle lately but with the Cornick books I prefer those adorable, beautiful paperbacks (even without having the chance to look one or the other word up)
Rating: 5*****

Gayle Callen „The Lord Next Door“ (Sisters of Willow Pond #1) – 3*** @GayleCallen

I am not sure where I bought “The Lord Next Door” by Gayle Callen but it could have been in London. I rarely read paperbacks at the moments, mostly ebooks, except for the Nicola Cornick and Kate Pearce books, but somehow I grabbed this one before I went to the bathtub a few days ago and just finished it.

“The Lord next door” is the 1^st novel in the “Sisters of Willow Pond” series. Firstly I want to say that I think this cover pretty trashy and unworthy the novel, also the backside. It’s not a book I’d read in public transport to work. I know this may sound silly but it’s so 1980s!

Nevertheless the story is rather easy. A young woman, Victoria Shelby, has to do something because there are so many things you can sell in a household to keep food on the table. Her father died half a year ago and left her, two sister and their mother without funds. The truth is that he didn’t just die, he hanged himself but they try to keep this knowledge from the ton, society. They aren’t aristocrats but her dad was a banker.

Next to her lives Lord David Thurlow who needs a wife.

They have a special bond Victoria doesn’t know about in the very beginning and that’s the really cute part of the story. Back when Victoria was a kid she loved to write into a journal and she always hid it. One day a young boy wrote into her journal as well and kind of a conversation started over the year. He told her that he’s the boy of the cook next door and has no father and so on. She let him know that she hates all the typical lady kind of things except for the piano lessons and needle work. In contrary with her two sisters she isn’t good with society and it is not easy for the girls to understand that her dad is allowed to deal with the ton’s money but isn’t welcome in their circles. One they he stops writing her. Years later, nowadays, she finds the journal again and writes into it, if he wants to marry her.

She has never seen the boy. So she takes all her courage together, after selling another piece of her home, to knock on the door of her neighbors to ask about Tom, the boy from her journal. Fact is she has to find out the hard way that Tom never existed but that the Earl’s son, David, Lord Thurlow, has played the role of the boy and written to her. He’s fascinated by her the first moment he sees her because she was his only friend back when he was a boy.

David has to get married to fix his status in society but not in the ton but within the railway business, he needs a wife for all the social events and he needs an heir. Victoria on the contrary needs a place to stay with her mother, somebody to take care of them because her cousin, who claims the house, is about to come back and wants them out. Her sisters already took positions as a companion and a governess and are away from home.

They get married rather quickly, within a few weeks with a special license and David’s father isn’t happy about the arrangement. He’s an old and sick man in a wheelchair and David has no good relationship towards him because after David’s mom died, when he was a teenager, he took his mistress into the house, only a few months after the sad event. He always blamed him for her death. It’s a rather complicated relationship and now he is marrying somebody beneath him, without money, land or social status.

He wants a wife and an heir. She asks him to give her time to get used to him before they start to be intimate. Day by day they make another small step towards each other. She copes with her fears and insecurities and he sees that she isn’t the shallow and boring young woman she seemed to be in the beginning. She is willing to learn things and face people who haven’t been nice to her when she had her season. And slowly they start to fall in love with each other, he touches her and she doesn’t pull away but wants more.

It’s not like this story is special. It’s a nice and easy read with a slow development. I really had the hope that there would be more about the diaries because I really liked the idea of corresponding the way they did when they were kids because writing always helped them.

You have to like Victoria and her insecurities and the small steps they make day by day are adorable but they are too small for me. There is erotic and romance in it, but the erotic comes in the very end of the book.

The end on the contrary is exactly how I wished it to be. Perfect.

Since I am not a native speaker but like to read in English I have to say that this book was rather an easy read. There wasn’t a single word to not understand, sometimes I am stuck with cloths, fashion and figures of speech but I think that’s normal. But what does it say about a book? Too easy in its way to deal with words? I don’t know.

Rating: 3***

Nicola Cornick „Desired“ (The Scandalous Women of the Ton #5) – 4**** @nicolacornick

In the early morning hours today I finished “Desired” by Nicola Cornick the 5^th book in the “Scandalous Women of the Ton” series, to hand it down to my mom. I rarely read books in the correct order. So I have read #3, #4 and #5 – maybe I should really start to read the first two books soon and they are already waiting to be read on my TBR shelf.

“Desired” was different from the other two books in this series.

Tess’, Lady Darent’s, expectations in a husband are easy: old, impotent and rich. Two of her three husbands fulfilled those goals, only number one was kind of a love match, she hadn’t been in love with him but she loved him because she knew him from her teenage years.

She isn’t as shallow as everybody thinks her to be. She’s active in a revolutionary, political radical group and a quite famous cartoonist, “Jupiter”, but mostly nobody knows that she’s the one and authorities already want “Jupiter” imprisoned. One night she flees from a bawdyhouse through a window and lands in Owen Purchase, Viscount Rothbury’s arms.

Because of her reputation – three marriages, paintings showing her naked body, the ton thinking her notorious – doesn’t make her life easier. When Corwen asks for payment of a loan she had given to Tess’ late husband, she gets into a precarious situation because he doesn’t want her money – 48.000 pounds – but the hand of her 15 year old stepdaughter. She refuses and he dares her to destroy the girl’s reputation because of Tess’ influence. Nevertheless she hasn’t seen the girl in ages to save her. There is only one way to save Sybil and her chance to have a season is to get married again. A marriage of convenience because Tess refuses intimacy.

That’s how Owen gets a role in the play. He told her that he doesn’t want to get married at all and society thinks that he was hurt badly in a battle and think him impotent. So he seems to be the perfect husband number 4.

After he agrees to marry her, she doesn’t need to talk him into it, only to tell him that she is a rich widow, looking for a marriage in name only to save her stepdaughter’s reputation. The only problem is that he starts to like Tess, sees behind the façade she wants people to see and he knows that she’s Jupiter. In the beginning he thinks that she only wants to marry him because a husband cannot give testimony at court against his wife but sooner than later he finds out that she really tries her best to not be a radical anymore, she even gave up drawing. Like he had given up his freedom at sea when he – a born American, soldier and pirate by the ton – inherited the Rothbury title.

The only problem is that he doesn’t want a marriage of convenience but he has to see that as soon as he touches Tess she freezes. She’s afraid of intimacy. Even when he kisses her. He even tells her that he wants a son and to bed her. She even offers divorce, annulment because she cannot give that to him …

Of course, it’s a Cornick novel, things change. Both start to fall in love bit by bit and start to trust each other. The reader acknowledge Tess’s attempts to be a better woman. To be different for him. But she has a past and that makes Tess so special. She loved her 1^st husband but the 2^nd one betrayed her in a very bad way but at least he died soon – but her reputation was gone. The 3^rd one wasn’t as bad as the 2^nd but he was no gentleman but at least impotent. Her two late husbands were addicted to different drugs – laudanum, alcohol, gambling – but pulled her into this mess. Her 2^nd husband betrayed her trust badly by showing her naked, by the offer to a painter to portray her naked in front of others and he was the reason why she refused intimacy, darkness and closed rooms.

The part with a female drawing political sketches, cartoons, reminded me of the fairly new book by Joanna Shupe “The Harlot Countess”, there are similarities to the storyline even if some don’t want to see that. The stories are unique but the cartoonist aspect quite similar at least in my opinion.

Owen is a special kind of hero. He steps in for Tess when she is to be arrested for high treason. He helps her from the very beginning and keeps her secrets. He even believes in her honesty and that she can change, that he can break her fears. Tess on the contrary is very different from Cornick’s females –that’s what I love about this series, every female is unique.

Tess presents a special picture to society, the one the ton wants to see. That she’s notorious. But the truth is that she never had a lover and intimacy is nothing she wants in a relationship – no touching, no kissing, nothing.

A wonderful storyline with great characters.

Rating: 4****

Nicola Cornick „Mistress by Midnight“ (Scandalous Women of the Ton #3) @nicolacornick

„Mistress by Midnight“ is the 3rd novel in the „Scandalous Women of the Ton“ by Nicola Cornick and a really great novel. First of all I have to say that I love the cover art of this series, this Mira edition. They are romantic and fit the novels perfectly without being trashy like so many other romantic paperbacks.

Merryn Fenner is the youngest sister of the Fenner sisters – the scandalous Tess (married three times already and three times a widow) and Joanna. But is several years younger and hasn’t the connection her sisters have towards each other because she doesn’t care about fashion. She only cares about justice – justice for her brother’s early death.

That’s why she hates Garrick Northesk, the Duke of Farne, so much. It was his hand who killed her brother, Stephen, because her brother had an affair with Farne’s wife.

Because her life is downright boring she works for Tim Bradshaw, a private investigator, to find out more about Garrick but also to have some thrill in her life. Her sisters don’t know about her “private” life because she invents friends, events and many other things. She’s a bluestocking so nobody in her family questions her.

After Farne’s death he gets his father’s title, something he never wanted, and responsibilities, also various estates. When he comes to one of his estates, he sleeps in his usual room but finds female things there – underwear, a book, glasses and so on … because Merryn is hiding under the bed, his bed. She is there to go through documents but since the house was closed down long ago, no servant looked into the bedrooms on a regular base. But when he pulls her from under the bed, he doesn’t know who she is nor does she tells him. Fact is, he cannot forget her and tries to trap her in quite a few situations, corner her but also rescue her.

Later one their ways are crossing again because she wants to blame him for Stephan’s death and she wants answers, she wants to know what really happens. And she is curious why she is the only one in her family who wants to know because her sisters don’t care, like they knew a different brother than she did.

Of course they get into a precarious situation and Farne offers for her hand, against Merryn’s will.

It’s a lovely story and has much more storyline in it. It’s about a scandal that happened years ago, a scandal that hasn’t subsided yet and puts Merryn into a complicated situation in the ton. Her sisters are older than she is, were married before and don’t care about ton. They have money and eventually know what happened back when Stephan was killed in a duel?

I like Cornicks way to portrait this family a lot. Merryn isn’t the typical bluestocking, she is only looking for the truth but has to realize that things are different, that she knows more about it without knowing it because she doesn’t want to see the truth, or at least parts of it. She idealizes Stephan but knows, deep inside, that he wasn’t the perfect brother but a hopeless rake who took advantage of an ill woman, Farne’s wife.

Farne is a hero, a classical one – good looking, sensitive and he cares about the people around him but if he gives his word to keep something secret, he does. He doesn’t give a damn about the estates, the title, the ton. It is hard to believe that somebody that sensual would kill in cold blood and that’s exactly what Cornick does so perfectly well – she paints pictures. The reader get the illusion that it is possible that he killed Stephan, shot him twice.

I also liked the way Merryn realizes that her sisters aren’t as shallow as she thinks they are. They care deeply for her but she thinks that they only care about dresses, jewels and balls. If you have read the other books of the series, you see, that they have impressive stories to tell themselves.

All in all it’s a great story. Funny to read and you cannot close the book easily because it is that well written. I like books that are able to paint pictures while reading, so you can see the movie in front of you. There are many Regency writers out there but Cornick is special.

Rating: 4****

Kate Pearce „House of Pleasure-Series“ – „Eden’s Pleasure“ (#0.5), „Simply Sexual“ (#1), „Antonia’s Bargain“ (#1.5), „Simply Sinful“ (#2), „Simply Shameful“ (#3)

After reading my first Kate Pearce book I was pretty boared by her style and really asked myself if there always has to be some menage a trois in it, even wrote that on Goodreads because I don’t see the need in a Regency romance book. Anyway, I decided to give another a chance and was pleasently surprised to like „The First Sinners“ 

Kate Pearce is an US writer but born and raised in England. I read about her on Goodreads because people seemed to love her books and after going through most of Jess Michael’s and several others I longed for something new … well I didnt think that there is another Sylvia Day style writer if it comes to Regency erotica.

 

„House of Pleasure“ Series 

The whole series is about 11 books long and I just finished #3 but I read them book by book even with the two novellas #0.5 and #1.5.

 

Eden’s Pleasure #0.5  – 2**

It’s the prequel to „Simply Sexual“, kind of at least. It’s Eden’s story. She was forced to marry byher dad to marry because she was caught in a compromising situation with Gervase and Gideon, the Harcourt twins. 

Now at the age of 26 she is a widow and Gideon’s was is crossing her’s. Truely she always loved Gervase but her pleasureless marriage makes her go for Gideon who would pleasure her in this novella but does not take anything from her, doesnt sleep with her.

They introduce her to Lady Desiree’s House of Pleasure where every erotic dream and fantasy may come true. There Eden explores her draems and understands that she still is in love with Gervase. 

– So far so good. The idea that Gervas
e doesnt take the woman his twinbrother loved his whole life is okay but the menage a trois scenes were so useless. I mean why did we need them? I could only make myself to give it 2 stars because it was simply too blunt for more.

Simply Sexual #1 – 4****

Part one is the story of Sara Harrison and Lord Valentin Sokorvsky. It’s much darker than any Regency romance I ever read before mostly of because of Valentin’s history.

For most of his youth Valentin had to serve as a sex slave in an oriental brothel to men and women in Turkey. Now he has to get married and get a heir. But his history is dark and it keeps him from finding satisfaction in normal sex. 

Sara lives the life of a spinster and already knows that she probably will die alone but doesnt care anymore. Her father wants to get one of his daughters married to him in exchange for financial help. Originally he should marry one of the younger girls but in the end it’s Sara he choses. 

They get married early in the book but it’s all about Sara’s sexual education and her appetite to see and learn more. She’s open minded. 

This book conta
ins all kinds of sex but there is nothing vanilla about it. It’s dark and there are MMf scene in it (which I am fan of) BUT the way our heroine grows up, grows stronger and stronger is really really well done. Nex to that I also enjoyed the way Val grows more tender, trusts her more and more with everything.

 

Antonia’s Bargain #1.5 – 3***

This is a standalone sequal to „Eden’s Pleasure“. It’s completely different from what I read before … I liked it, most of it.

Antonia knows that she has to get married soon but has no clue about sex, so she makes her cousin take her to The House of Pleasure“ with her but she’s dressed as a man. Of course very soon somebody finds out but finds interest in this mascarade. 

Gideon, the other Harcourt twin, is a widower for not too long after is wife killed herself very dramatically and looks for release in the etablisment. He let Antonia be Anthony and shows him „the dark side“ of London and pleasure. He let’s the woman see that men see London differently so he gives her exactly what she was looking for from the very beginning. 

It’s not as dark as #1 and its very different because it really shows the way men eventually saw London while women were at home doing their needlework, raising or at least carrying children and just be perfect.

But on the other side it was kind fo boring, because of all the menage a trois scenes. Nevertheless I liked the concept.

 

Simply Sinful #2 – 4****

Truely this is the 2nd part and connects to book #1. I bought #1 and #2 in the US as paperbacks, all the others so far I read on my kindle. Sometimes it’s so nice to have a good old paperback in your hand. 😉

It’s the story of Peter Howard who was the second slave and best friend of Valentin. Both have been in the same brothel, been on the same ship before they were sold. But Peter is darker in his tastes because he likes men a lot, sexually. But it’s not that easy because he loved to be the 3rd wheel in the Val-Sara-triangle. Now that Sara is pregnant Val tells him that he doesnt want him anymore in his bed. 

Peter takes it personally. But at the House of Pleasure he meets a man, James Beecham, who asks him to help him rebuilt the relationship to his wife, the sexual relationship. His wife Abigail is tired and sick of her sexless marriage and reads about carnal pleasures. She wants that too. She was forced to marry young and her husband isn’t able to satisfy her, so she is ready to find somebody who will. James knows that he needs a heir but he isnt able to satisfy Abigail that’s why he hopes that Peter may help them. James longs for men. He more or less asks Peter to help them to get pregnant. 

Everything starts quite simple … 

Very soon I noticed that there were more feelings involved than planned because Peter nor Abigail were able to seperate sex and love from each other. I think that this story has very honest but also some dark parts in it.

I still do not think that dildos, cockrings etc. were established in London in the 19th century already. I know that there alread have been dildos before Christ but nevertheless it seems so easy to get on in this book. I didnt like that aspect.

 

Simply Shameless #3 – 4****

Oh I absolutely loved this one, well most of it. So far it is my favorite of the series because it’s about Helene Delornay, the owner of the House of Pleasure.

When she was just 18, Helene was already a hero but didnt see it. She gave birth at 15, gave her child in a nonnery and didnt abandon it, got the mistress of an old French lord. At 18 she travelled to London in a travel coach with a young man – Philip Ross, who just came back from India. He is entitled to marry because his brother just died. During the days of travelling they spent a weekend of pleasure with each other. Philip offers to marry Helene but after she tells him that she is a whore he leaves. 

More than 18 years later she owns the House of Pleasure in London and has to deal with the fact that her 1st born daughter just got married and left the nonnery and her 18 year old twins stand in front of her because they simply left the nonnery after they recieved a letter which said that their mother would be a whore and gave them her correct address. Helen is stressed.

Next to all that Philip comes with a friend after 18 years, just turned a widower, to her etablisment. In the beginning she thinks he doesnt remember her but very soon things turn more and more complicated … 

I could really feel with Helen. Pearce described the House of Pleasure so well taht I could really see it in front of me while reading – room by room, the floors, the furniture and even Helen’s chance in dresses, e.g. to be a maid, so she wouldnt be seen by her guests. Perfectly well done. And the story even has some real romance in it 😉

 

Conclusio: Time to read more of the series!