rakishabpl's review against another edition
3.0
How to Seduce a Wife was steamy and a page turner. I'm going to read more of her stories.
stellar_raven's review
4.0
*This review is based on a copy of the book I won through Goodreads FirstReads Giveaways.*
I've had the hardest time deciding how to rate this book. In the only other anthology I read, I rated each story individually, then used the average for the book overall.
However I find that if I do that this time, my dislike of one of the stories brings down the overall rating of the book to an unfair level. So, I'm going with an overall rating of four stars because two of the three stories were definitely worth that rating.
Now that that's out of the way, on to the stories:
Beauty and the Brute by Virgina Henley
Rating: 1 star
I did not care for this one at all.
13 year old Sarah and 18 year old Charles are married (in name only, I should add) to pay off a gambling debt. Sarah is in a awkward stage and Charles is pretty much a jerk at the time their nuptials took place. Charles said some pretty hideous things to young Sarah on the boat to the Netherlands where the hasty wedding was to take place--before either knew the other was their betrothed. When Sarah realizes the cruel boy on the boat is to be her husband, she pleads to be let out of the arrangement. When Charles sees the plain child he's supposed to marry, he becomes even crueler. But...the marriage takes place as arranged.
Flash forward three years, and young Sarah has turned from ugly duckling to swan (of course), and is now the toast of the ton (of course) when her husband returns from his grand tour. He sees Sarah and is transfixed by her beauty (of course), however he does not recognize her as his wife, and once he does, he's quite ready to start his married life. Sarah, though, wants revenge. Revenge for the cruel words he said to her, revenge for being forced into the marriage (she seems to conveniently forget that Charles was forced into the marriage too.)
Not a bad premise for a story, but for me at least, the execution was lacking. I wasn't a fan of the writing style, which seemed to either veer from totally flat to purple prose at an alarming rate. I could feel nothing positive for any of the characters in the story because they were all one dimensional and either totally annoying or boring. The heroine's revenge and the way she went about it really bothered me, too.
Plus...pardon my modern moral sensibilities, but I couldn't really wrap my head around reading sex scenes that involved a 16 year old girl. Others' mileage may vary on that, though.
How to Seduce a Wife by Kate Pearce
Rating: 4.5 stars
This one I really liked. A lot. And sadly it was the shortest of the three stories.
Nicholas March is a reformed rake. He gave up his lascivious ways after realizing that he didn't want to go down the same road as his father, whose gambling and womanizing ways hurt his wife and children both mentally and financially. Nicholas decides to take himself a respectable wife and settle into a faithful marriage...determined to treat his wife the way he feels a genteel lady should be treated, in all manners of marriage.
Our story begins as Nicholas visits his wife's bedchamber expecting to have (boring) sex with his wife, only to find her not waiting in bed where he expected her, but curled up reading a lurid novel (involving a ravishing pirate). Upon completion of...marital relations, Nicholas notices his wife's lack of attention and asks what's wrong. And this is one thing I really liked about this story: She tells him. She's not satisfied in bed and wants to be ravished like the heroines in the novels she reads. Naturally Nicholas is not at all pleased to have his prowess in bed be called lacking, but I liked the fact that he didn't fly into a rage nor run right out to a brothel to prove her wrong. Realizing that he may have went a bit overboard in his attempts to be the polar opposite of his father, he sets out to seduce his wife.
I really liked the fact that the main characters were already married at the start of the story, and they actually talked about their problems. The dialogue was witty, sharp and funny, and I really liked the two main characters (as well as Nicholas' sister). This was a really fun read.
Not Quite a Courtesan by Maggie Robinson
Rating: 4 stars
Liked this one a lot as well, but not quite as much as the previous story. Widow Pru Thorne's attempts to keep her young and recently married cousin Sophy out of trouble, places her in the path of Darius Shaw, brother of Sophy's groom. And I must apologize to Ms. Robinson, but it seems that I am running out of review writing steam at the moment, so this one will be rather short (though I may come back and edit it at a later date). This story was more humorous than the other two and I found it to be a quick, easy and fun read. Snappy dialogue, well drawn out characters and enough sweetness to balance out the funny makes this one a winner in my book.
I'm putting this under a spoiler cut, though I don't think I mentioned much that wasn't already implied when reading the synopsis of the book...better safe than sorry, though.
I've had the hardest time deciding how to rate this book. In the only other anthology I read, I rated each story individually, then used the average for the book overall.
However I find that if I do that this time, my dislike of one of the stories brings down the overall rating of the book to an unfair level. So, I'm going with an overall rating of four stars because two of the three stories were definitely worth that rating.
Now that that's out of the way, on to the stories:
Beauty and the Brute by Virgina Henley
Rating: 1 star
I did not care for this one at all.
13 year old Sarah and 18 year old Charles are married (in name only, I should add) to pay off a gambling debt. Sarah is in a awkward stage and Charles is pretty much a jerk at the time their nuptials took place. Charles said some pretty hideous things to young Sarah on the boat to the Netherlands where the hasty wedding was to take place--before either knew the other was their betrothed. When Sarah realizes the cruel boy on the boat is to be her husband, she pleads to be let out of the arrangement. When Charles sees the plain child he's supposed to marry, he becomes even crueler. But...the marriage takes place as arranged.
Flash forward three years, and young Sarah has turned from ugly duckling to swan (of course), and is now the toast of the ton (of course) when her husband returns from his grand tour. He sees Sarah and is transfixed by her beauty (of course), however he does not recognize her as his wife, and once he does, he's quite ready to start his married life. Sarah, though, wants revenge. Revenge for the cruel words he said to her, revenge for being forced into the marriage (she seems to conveniently forget that Charles was forced into the marriage too.)
Not a bad premise for a story, but for me at least, the execution was lacking. I wasn't a fan of the writing style, which seemed to either veer from totally flat to purple prose at an alarming rate. I could feel nothing positive for any of the characters in the story because they were all one dimensional and either totally annoying or boring. The heroine's revenge and the way she went about it really bothered me, too.
Plus...pardon my modern moral sensibilities, but I couldn't really wrap my head around reading sex scenes that involved a 16 year old girl. Others' mileage may vary on that, though.
How to Seduce a Wife by Kate Pearce
Rating: 4.5 stars
This one I really liked. A lot. And sadly it was the shortest of the three stories.
Nicholas March is a reformed rake. He gave up his lascivious ways after realizing that he didn't want to go down the same road as his father, whose gambling and womanizing ways hurt his wife and children both mentally and financially. Nicholas decides to take himself a respectable wife and settle into a faithful marriage...determined to treat his wife the way he feels a genteel lady should be treated, in all manners of marriage.
Our story begins as Nicholas visits his wife's bedchamber expecting to have (boring) sex with his wife, only to find her not waiting in bed where he expected her, but curled up reading a lurid novel (involving a ravishing pirate). Upon completion of...marital relations, Nicholas notices his wife's lack of attention and asks what's wrong. And this is one thing I really liked about this story: She tells him. She's not satisfied in bed and wants to be ravished like the heroines in the novels she reads. Naturally Nicholas is not at all pleased to have his prowess in bed be called lacking, but I liked the fact that he didn't fly into a rage nor run right out to a brothel to prove her wrong. Realizing that he may have went a bit overboard in his attempts to be the polar opposite of his father, he sets out to seduce his wife.
I really liked the fact that the main characters were already married at the start of the story, and they actually talked about their problems. The dialogue was witty, sharp and funny, and I really liked the two main characters (as well as Nicholas' sister). This was a really fun read.
Not Quite a Courtesan by Maggie Robinson
Rating: 4 stars
Liked this one a lot as well, but not quite as much as the previous story. Widow Pru Thorne's attempts to keep her young and recently married cousin Sophy out of trouble, places her in the path of Darius Shaw, brother of Sophy's groom. And I must apologize to Ms. Robinson, but it seems that I am running out of review writing steam at the moment, so this one will be rather short (though I may come back and edit it at a later date). This story was more humorous than the other two and I found it to be a quick, easy and fun read. Snappy dialogue, well drawn out characters and enough sweetness to balance out the funny makes this one a winner in my book.
I'm putting this under a spoiler cut, though I don't think I mentioned much that wasn't already implied when reading the synopsis of the book...better safe than sorry, though.
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