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A review by cdb393
The Problem with Seduction by Emma Locke
4.0
I received an arc of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was very interested in reading this book because I felt the first book in the series had some great elements despite being uneven. Locke has a knack for creating interesting and complex main characters. The problems I had in the first book were not present in this one. The pacing was good throughout the entire book and the supporting characters were handled better (with one small exception that I'll address later in the review).
I really liked both Elizabeth and Con. Elizabeth loves her son and she wants to have the kind of relationship with him that she didn't have with her parents. She's used to taking care of herself and makes sure she gets what she wants. She sees herself as unloveable and selfish but we see through her interactions with Con and her friends that this isn't completely true. We also see her reach out time after time to her family only to be rejected every time. She's made mistakes but she's recognized them and would like a chance at forgiveness but her family refuses. Her father goes so far as to support the father of Elizabeth's son in his bid to take their son, Oliver, away from Elizabeth.
Con is such a likable character. Even though he has decided to pose as the father of Elizabeth's son to get money, he grows to care about both Elizabeth and Oliver. He complains about his brothers and mother but he obviously loves them deeply and would do anything for them. A great deal of the money he gets from Elizabeth is used to settle his twin brother, Dare's, gambling debts. Con is a bit of a people pleaser; he wants everyone to be happy even at his own expense. Despite all of his selflessness, he doesn't come off as a martyr or too good to be true. We see his conflict about wanting to help the people he cares but also wanting to put his wants and needs first sometimes. He also desperately wants his brothers to see him as a success.
There is a lot of drama and conflict in this book. The major conflict is the fact that Oliver's father, Finn, wants to take his son back from Elizabeth like he had previously done. While Con initially creates doubt in Finn's mind about Oliver's parentage, Finn quickly decides he's been had and that he is Oliver's father. I was always aware that this book is about trying to keep a child from his real father. That did bother me some. The injustice of Elizabeth having no rights when it comes to custody of her own child and the fact that Finn had taken Oliver away from her before definitely made me feel better about rooting for Elizabeth's plan to work but didn't completely eliminate my reservations.
The other big conflict, in the last fourth of the book, felt forced to me. Elizabeth withholds some information from Con and his brothers because she doesn't trust Con not to stay with her if he no longer needs her money. It just didn't ring true that Elizabeth would have withheld this information. Even if she didn't completely trust Con to stay with her, I felt there was enough trust between the two that she would have risked it and dealt with the consequences if she was wrong. Con's reaction to finding out this information seemed a little out of proportion to the deception given the relatively short time she kept the secret especially when much of the time it would have been impossible to tell him and inappropriate to tell his family.
The other big problem I had with this book was that the final chapter revolved solely around a supporting character in the book. It seemed to be setting up a book for that character, but it wasn't Roman who is the hero of the next story. Maybe this ending somehow plays into the next book but I felt the author could tells us about the continuing storyline with that character a little earlier and integrate it better with the main story.
While this story wasn't perfect, I still had a good time reading it and would recommended to historical romance fans.
I was very interested in reading this book because I felt the first book in the series had some great elements despite being uneven. Locke has a knack for creating interesting and complex main characters. The problems I had in the first book were not present in this one. The pacing was good throughout the entire book and the supporting characters were handled better (with one small exception that I'll address later in the review).
I really liked both Elizabeth and Con. Elizabeth loves her son and she wants to have the kind of relationship with him that she didn't have with her parents. She's used to taking care of herself and makes sure she gets what she wants. She sees herself as unloveable and selfish but we see through her interactions with Con and her friends that this isn't completely true. We also see her reach out time after time to her family only to be rejected every time. She's made mistakes but she's recognized them and would like a chance at forgiveness but her family refuses. Her father goes so far as to support the father of Elizabeth's son in his bid to take their son, Oliver, away from Elizabeth.
Con is such a likable character. Even though he has decided to pose as the father of Elizabeth's son to get money, he grows to care about both Elizabeth and Oliver. He complains about his brothers and mother but he obviously loves them deeply and would do anything for them. A great deal of the money he gets from Elizabeth is used to settle his twin brother, Dare's, gambling debts. Con is a bit of a people pleaser; he wants everyone to be happy even at his own expense. Despite all of his selflessness, he doesn't come off as a martyr or too good to be true. We see his conflict about wanting to help the people he cares but also wanting to put his wants and needs first sometimes. He also desperately wants his brothers to see him as a success.
There is a lot of drama and conflict in this book. The major conflict is the fact that Oliver's father, Finn, wants to take his son back from Elizabeth like he had previously done. While Con initially creates doubt in Finn's mind about Oliver's parentage, Finn quickly decides he's been had and that he is Oliver's father. I was always aware that this book is about trying to keep a child from his real father. That did bother me some. The injustice of Elizabeth having no rights when it comes to custody of her own child and the fact that Finn had taken Oliver away from her before definitely made me feel better about rooting for Elizabeth's plan to work but didn't completely eliminate my reservations.
The other big conflict, in the last fourth of the book, felt forced to me. Elizabeth withholds some information from Con and his brothers because she doesn't trust Con not to stay with her if he no longer needs her money. It just didn't ring true that Elizabeth would have withheld this information. Even if she didn't completely trust Con to stay with her, I felt there was enough trust between the two that she would have risked it and dealt with the consequences if she was wrong. Con's reaction to finding out this information seemed a little out of proportion to the deception given the relatively short time she kept the secret especially when much of the time it would have been impossible to tell him and inappropriate to tell his family.
The other big problem I had with this book was that the final chapter revolved solely around a supporting character in the book. It seemed to be setting up a book for that character, but it wasn't Roman who is the hero of the next story. Maybe this ending somehow plays into the next book but I felt the author could tells us about the continuing storyline with that character a little earlier and integrate it better with the main story.
While this story wasn't perfect, I still had a good time reading it and would recommended to historical romance fans.