Lynette's Two Cents: REVIEW: Always A Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

23 November 2011

REVIEW: Always A Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

Posted by Lynette

ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS

Eileen Dreyer

ISBN #: 978-0446542050

Hachette Book Group/Warner Forever

October 2011

Historical Romance

BACK COVER BLURB:

His greatest battle is just beginning . . .

Captain Harry Lidge has done his duty. After losing too many good men on the battlefield, he's ready to put his responsibilities behind him and live a life free of care. But first he has one last mission: find out what the most outrageous woman in London, the same woman who betrayed him nearly a decade earlier, is concealing, before her secrets take down the crown.

Her heart is the only thing she won't risk . . .

Surrounded by ardent admirers and a few loyal friends, Lady Kate Seaton glides through the ton on a confection of couture gowns and bon mots. No one suspects that beneath her lighthearted façade Kate hides a sorrow so scandalous she'll do anything to keep it hidden. But only when she trusts Harry with the truth and only when he trusts her with his heart can they stop the villains all too willing to kill Kate to attain their ultimate goal: destroy England.

COVER SNARK:

Kate he's a douche. Save all that lust and heaving bosoms for another man. Seriously, that is all I can see when I look at this cover.

FIRST LINES:

Whoever said that no good deed goes unpunished must have been well acquainted with Katie Hilliard. No, Major Sir Harry Lidge corrected himself as he trudged into Oak Grove Manor's Grand Salon to see her holding court by the front window. Not Hilliard. It was Seaton now.

LYNETTE'S TWO CENTS

I debated about posting this review, but in the end I did even though I did not finish this book. And I'm not sure if I can explain why in a coherent and reasonable manner. I'm sorry. I think that people are going to stop giving me books for review because I so rarely gush about books and frankly I just don't have the patience to keep reading a book that doesn't capture me even if I feel obligated to do so. I am such a crappy reviewer/blogger. I really want to gush about books, really I do, but a book has to keep me interested, it has to make me forget that I have two children running around like crazy in my house. ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS just didn't do that to me, I was too caught up in the Are You Kidding Me moments.

I think since I've become a Stay-At-Home Mom my tolerance level for any melodramatic drama that doesn't revolve around my children has gone in the toilet. That's because I just don't have a lot of leisure time to read. Ironic really when you think that I've had less time to read now that I'm at home than I did when I was working. Anyhoo, ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS had too much drama that could have been averted. I could tell from the first couple pages that all was not what it seemed. I also had issues with the hero from the moment he appeared on the page. He spent so much time assuming what the heroine was about that he never TALKED to her. Maybe my feelings would've been different if I read the other books in the series first (this is the 3rd, I think). Maybe if I'd seen the hero in another environment first I would have understood more of where he was coming from. However, since I didn't I hated, hated, hated the hero. All I could think of while reading ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS was I was just not in the mood for another story where the hero is treating the heroine for crap that wasn't her fault, things that he would have known wasn't her fault if he would've just shut the f up and spend two minutes talking to her to hash out their past.

******MINI RANT*********

*AUTHORS, please don't assume that all your readers are reading order nazi's who read books in order. I don't always and I know that others don't as well. So, if you're making your hero a jerk in the first couple pages, please please please make the reason a justifiable and a compelling one.

*********RANT OVER********

The writing inside of ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS was very well done, and the heroine actually appeared interesting, I would have liked to have known more about her background, it was obvious she had been abused and I wanted to know her history. However, I just couldn't get over the thin premise for the plot and the hero's actions. Basically a villain dies in the beginning and he says that the heroine has what he's looking for. So everyone believes a known villain who it appears did some awful crap in the previous books. So now that gives the hero who now believes the heroine is a spy justification to be a prick to her and get payback for doing him wrong when they were kids. Of course she didn't do him wrong, it's painfully obvious and I would have bought his I HATE HER, I HATE HER moments more if they weren't he said/she said type stuff and he actually tried to talk to her to resolve their past, but he didn't. It also didn't help that I so figured out what the heroine supposedly has because it was very obvious where their 'secrets' where hiding from a scene in a prologue. I could be wrong and I often am, but with me figuring this out, not connecting with the hero and the weak conflict that could've been resolved with a conversation caused me to lose interest.

ALWAYS A TEMPTRESS has gotten some great reviews so it could just be me, you know how ornery I am.

RATING: