Saturday, May 28, 2011
Midnight's Wild Passion by Anna Campbell
Title/Author: Midnight's Wild Passion by Anna Campbell
Publisher/Date published: Avon, May 1st 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley
Goodreads summary: "London's most notorious seducer, Nicholas Challoner lives solely for revenge...
The dashing, licentious Marquess of Ranelaw can never forgive Godfrey Demarest for ruining his sister — now the time has come to repay the villain in the same coin. But one formidably intriguing impediment stands in the way of Nicholas's vengeance: Miss Antonia Smith, companion to his foe's unsuspecting daughter.
Having herself been deceived and disgraced by a rogue — banished by her privileged family as a result and forced to live a lie — Antonia vows to protect her charge from the same cruel fate. She recognizes Ranelaw for the shameless blackguard he is and will devote every ounce of her intelligence and resolve to thwarting him.
Yet Antonia has always had a fatal weakness for rakes..."
Somehow everything that happened in this book seemed a little unlikely. I mean, sure, the way things are done in historical romances is probably not so realistic, BUT well written, they can be believable. And I had some difficulty in that area with this one.
Antonia, our heroine, hasn't made the wisest decisions in the past and because of this her father banished her. Godfrey Demarest, a relative, takes her in and she becomes the companion to his daughter. She wears horribly unflattering dresses and glasses so as not to be recognized by her former acquaintances and this works well for her for 10 years. Which is when Ranelaw comes along and 'ruins' everything.
Antonia doesn't seem all that smart. A little bit less than she was in the book and I'd have labeled her 'too stupid to live'. However, she is very caring and loyal. And passionate when she lets herself. I must admit she really did annoy me at times and I wanted to smack her in the back of the head at the decisions she made.
Ranelaw appears to be an intelligent man, but in matters of the heart he needs to take another course or 50 in order to understand them. I get that he's angry Demarest ruined his sister, but come on, it's been 20 years! If you want to do anything, just shoot the man himself instead of going after his innocent daughter. And how is that going to help his sister? This really annoyed me.
Together the main characters did have chemistry and there were lovely moments in the book, but with Ranelaw being angry almost all the time and Antonia being scared, I just had issues with them. And I also didn't appreciate that at the beginning of the story their encounters were more Ranelaw forcing himself on Antonia than them being taken over by passion. Not romantic.
The second half of the book was better than the first and it's what saved the book for me. Though I could have done without the epilogue.
My rating: 2,5 stars
Labels:
2.5 stars,
adult,
historical romance,
review
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Aww, I liked it in theory but it does sound like she's slightly TSTL and the hero's motives are a bit ridiculous. I could understand it if his retaliation was immediate but, like you said, 20 years later it's just... dumb.
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