Reckless by Anne Stuart

You say no, but you really mean yes!
http://www.anne-stuart.com/

It took me forever to read this book and there were a number of times when I thought about not finishing Reckless, but because I have such great respect for Anne Stuart, I sighed and drudged through. Reckless is the second in the trilogy of House of Rohan, and it is about Adrian the son of Francis and Elinor from Ruthless. So, we are now moved ahead in time to Regency England.

Let me begin my grouse-fest. Let's begin with Adrian, who like his father belongs to the Heavenly Host club and is also carrying a big chip around on his shoulder. The chip is his father. He's got some kind of grudge against him (his father was the hero from the previous book so it can't be too bad.) However, we don’t really know why he does, we are never told why, all we are ever allowed to see or hear is him moaning and whining about his father, the hypocrite. There is hardly any interaction between Adrian and his parents, which was disappointing to me, especially since he's got a problem with one of them. I didn’t like Adrian! He’s an overgrown spoilt, whiny, sullen frat boy who does not understand the meaning of “no”. He’s one of those: I know you want this, say you want this as much as I do, I’ll make you say yes. Anne Stuart usually can turn these "no" means "yes" jerks into wonderful heroes, but this time she failed, this time the hero came close to being a Steve Morgan jerky hero clone.

And then there is the heroine. Ah Charlotte, you know the type. She's a spinster virgin heroine, plain, at six feet tall with red hair. Now, how a six foot woman with curly red hair could ever be considered plain is beyond me. Maybe it’s the glasses, no wait a minute she only needs them for reading! I wish there were more heroines who would wear their glasses all the way through the book! I do remember one who did, it was rather charming because her lenses kept fogging up. Of course, I don’t remember which heroine that was, anyway back to Charlotte.

Charlotte was borderline TSTL. As I said before she’s a virgin, which means she yearns to experience the seamy side of life, because she’s a plain six foot red head and will never never ever have sex, because she's plain. Sooooo, she decides if she can never never have sex, she’ll go watch it. Yes, let’s dress up as a monk…what a good idea! The brilliant plan is then to accompany her cousin to a Heavenly Host party! Why? Because she is going to watch people having sex and maybe even see sullen Adrian there! Then she will get to see his fabulous body. You know she has been stalking him...I mean l-u-v-e-d him forever and ever! Why has she luved this selfish sullen boy? Because down deep, he is really really a wonderful person, he's just hiding behind that arrogant facade. Big groan!

Thank goodness there were some nice secondary characters, loved the dying friend Monty and the almost scene stealing cousin and her vicar. But the secondary characters are not what the book is about…the book is about a stupid heroine and a distasteful hero.

Reckless did not live up to its predecessor and I was pretty disappointed, I was really looking forward to the second in the series. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for next month and Breathless, the third in the series.

Time/Place: Regency England
Rating:
Sensuality Rating: Scorcher