His at Night by Sherry Thomas

I've Got a Secret! Whisper your secret to me, and we'll show it to the folks at home. Wait a minute - you ALL have secrets! Well, I don't have that many ears. I guess the folks at home will just have to read the book to discover the secrets.

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His at Night by Sherry Thomas was one of the many books this month I was looking forward to. So far, I've loved all of Ms. Thomas' work. I feel she's one of the more articulate new authors around. However, His at Night turned out to be another see-saw read. There were parts of this book I really loved, and I particularly loved Lord Vere when he was being the pretend idiot. I was surprised enough at a number of LOL moments, and one very hysterical moment involving cows udders that I had to check the front cover to make sure I was reading Sherry Thomas.

The heroine, Elissande, is also a finely drawn sympathetic character, even when she traps Vere into marriage. And, I was thrilled to have a handsome villain without bad breath. He was an especially creepy, crawly, chilling, menacing kind of guy - H-I-S-S-S-s-s. There was a charming secondary romance that could have had its own book - Freddie from Private Arrangements gets his HEA.

Thomas' writing was a fine-tuned melody; however, I had a problem with Vere once he and Elissande were married. I loved him as the fool, but his cruel treatment of Elissande came awfully close to jerk-hero territory. I also thought that once they were married, they lost the chemistry that they had in the beginning of the book and if it hadn't been for Vere saying "I love you," I never would have known.

Overall, this book is a wonderful book, at least for the first part, but the romance fiz-z-z-z-zled - and because of that I wasn't able to give it a higher rating.

Time/Place 1890 England
Rating:
Sensuality Rating: Warm

P.S. There were tons of secrets.