Excuse me, wasn't your hand doing tricks just yesterday?
http://www.caraelliott.com/index.html
Sinfully Yours is the second book in the Hellions of High Street series. The stories focus on
the misadventures of the three Sloane sisters who are not your normal, everyday Regency misses. They all three have dreams, schemes and flying machines. Well, maybe not the flying machines. The first sister writes about politics and the third, Caro, writes poems. This story is about the middle sister, Anna, and she writes Gothic adventure stories under the pen name of Sir Sharpe Quill. These stories are over-the-top-melodramatic-harrowing adventures; which by the way, are also highly popular. But, you see she has a problem. Her deadline is looming and she's stumped as to where to take her characters next. The premise of this story was pretty amusing. Anna is pulling her hair out trying to come up with "new" adventures for her characters Alessandro Crispini and Emmalina Smythe. I found the scenes where Anna and her sister, Caro, are expounding on what dangers they can put these people through very amusing. Caro was so funny in her exuberance that she almost stole the show. By the way, I chuckled over the name Crispini and the fact that Anna’s fictional heroine was an orphan. There was some pretty amusing insight into the writing of a gothic/romance book; I believe Ms. Elliott winked at us with some of it. Anyway, Anna’s profession leads to a rather comical misunderstanding between Anna and Devlin (mostly Devlin.) Anna is sneaking around doing covert things like looking at guns and hiding in dark places. Devlin on the other hand is investigating some kind of crime. He of course thinks Anna is up to no good, at least in the beginning. This had all the promise of being a screwball comedy, but it didn’t quite get there – too bad.
We were introduced to Anna and her antagonist, aka hero Devlin, in the last book, Scandalously Yours. They were the main reason I decided to continue with the series. They were such a delightfully argumentative couple and I wanted to see how they managed their own book. I'm delighted to say they managed pretty well! I enjoyed both Devlin and Anna. They both have secrets, they're both strong and their banter is amusing. While I found them enjoyable, their chemistry was uneven. One moment they are secluded in an alcove doing hand puppet tricks, and I mean really hot hand puppets. In this particular scene, the innocent heroine is reaching her hands down our hero's trousers for a grand adventure with Mr. Toad. Of course, Devlin has to return the favor. Then the next time we see Devlin and Anna it's as if nothing happened. Oh sure, Anna thinks about it for a while, but it doesn't seem to be the earth shattering moment it had to have been. She is/was a pretty wholesome girl after all. She should have pondered that moment longer than she did. And, as for the not-so-innocent Devlin - well - it did seem as if it was one of the best encounters he'd ever had (of course). The next day he had a bit of a detachment from Anna – it was bothersome. Because I felt as if Devlin was disconnected from Anna, so when the actual first bedding occurred, it was a tad bit jolting.
Secondary characters. There is/was a great set-up for the future story, Passionately Yours, which revolves around the youngest Sloane sister Caro. Caro was pretty funny - she's sooooo dramatic, she's quite the melodramatic queen and she hatesssss the obnoxious Lord McClellan. I'm really looking forward to their book. Keeping my fingers crossed. You just never know how a great secondary character is going to translate when they are given their own book. I'm also enjoying the relationship between the sisters. They get along and there's not an evil one in the group.
There is also a house party and a mystery to solve; the house party is fun, the mystery easy to solve. I spotted the villain right away, I just didn't want it to be that particular person.
Overall, this is an enjoyable book, a light read with an endearing couple. I would have given it a higher rating if Devlin had been connected just a little bit more with Anna.
Time/Place: Regency England/Scotland
Sensuality: Warm/Hot
No comments:
Post a Comment