LESSONS OF DESIRE

Author: Madeline Hunter ISBN: 0440243947 11/2007 HISTORICAL Publisher: BANTAM
Time Period: Late Regency

He first appears beneath her prison window as her savior—a sinfully attractive man whose charm and connections have ensured her release from an unjust arrest. But author and publisher Phaedra Blair quickly learns that the price of her "freedom" is to be virtually bound to her irresistible rescuer. For Elliot Rothman didn't come solely on a mission of goodwill. He came to extract a promise that Phaedra won't publish a slanderous manuscript that could destroy his family's name, and he's not above bribery, threats, or bedding her to get his way. And with each erotic encounter raising the stakes between them, Elliot discovers he's ever more reluctant to lose this sensual game.or the one woman who's every bit his match.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I just love it when everything in a book falls so neatly into place. The setting, the plot, but especially the two lead characters, all make LESSONS OF DESIRE one not-to-miss book sure to please all lovers of historical romance.

Phaedra has been raised by a free-thinking mother, a woman whose belief in free love, disbelief in marriage and being an independent woman have been passed along to her daughter. Having lived on her own from the age of sixteen and following in her mother's philosophical footsteps, Phaedra, upon making a death bed promise and inheriting her father's press, is determined to publish her late father's memoirs intact, regardless of the scandal some of it's passages may bring onto others. One of those "others" just happens to be Lord Elliot Rothwell, whose deceased father and a rumor about the death of his mother's lover in another country by his father's hand, if published could bring his family to ruin.

Elliot is the youngest son in a family that's already seen its own share of scandal. Yet Elliot seems to be the most level headed of his brothers, and from all accounts the most understanding and one willing to listen to reason. A writer, he teams up with Phaedra for a variety of reasons—of course, to get those passages pertaining to his family deleted from her father's memoirs is the primary one—but it's soon apparent that his heart has overtaken his head where Phaedra is concerned. And though Phaedra is willing to give in to her sexual desire for Elliot and he for her (I love how she calls her lovers "friends"), it's done with the understanding there's no strings attached, as Phaedra wishes. That is, until a drastic situation makes them enter into a marriage that may or may not be legal, as they continue their quest for the truth about Elliot's father and the background behind a mysterious cameo that Phaedra fears may have contributed to her own mother's death.

Actually, all the plot becomes secondary to everything else, simply because the character development of Phaedra and Elliot seems to overwhelm your senses. The sexual tension and emotional bonding between these two just saturates this book—it's some of the best tension between lovers I've read in a romance story in a long, long while. The sexual passages where Phaedra and Elliot finally do come together are erotic, sensual and super sexy hot, but not overly written in the graphical sex department. This is the way I like my romance with sex to read—it gets me all hot and bothered and sets me on the edge, leaving just enough open for my own imagination to kick in and finish the picture myself. I just loved those parts of this book, and I adored both Phaedra and Elliot as individuals and as a loving couple.

So, who cares if Phaedra saves her press or finds the cameo's origin? Who cares if Elliot convinces her to delete those scandalous passages in her father's memoirs? Not me! I only cared that in the end, Phaedra and Elliot got what both of these wonderful characters truly deserved—a wonderful ending. Lord knows, I sure got more than I deserved when reading LESSONS OF DESIRE. It's just superb.

Nancy Davis