Carole Mortimer, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-914336-00-3
Historical Romance, 2021
Sinful is the fourth entry in Carole Mortimer’s Regency Scandal series, and I wonder why this one has a title that starts with an S, when the previous ones have all started with W. Maybe the author has run out of sexy words that start with W, or maybe she wants to do an early Amanda Quick title-pattern and have three consecutive books with one-word titles that all begin with the same alphabet.
Wonky, Wannabe, Wanker, Wombat… okay, let’s go with Sinful.
Yes, that’s a ship on the cover art, and considering how old school the author can be when it comes to her tropes and style, a part of me secretly hopes that this one will have some saucy, larger than life pirate ship ravishment fun.
Well, there are more than one ship here, and they are all under the command of Admiral Lord Magnus Forsythe, who’s also the Earl of Rockborne. Rockborne, huh?
Rocky is in Douglas, which is in the Isle of Man, as a representative for the Prince Regent for the governor’s ball during Tynwald Day.
Also in the ball is our heroine Olivia Buchan, who has been banished here by her parents because she just can’t get married after so four Seasons, and they want her to vamoose so that they can launch her younger sisters instead. As expected, our heroine is outspoken, thinks that all men are fops, et cetera… until she lays eyes on Rocky and all of a sudden, she wants to climb that mountain of flesh and pitch her, er, flag on the peak.
She again focused her attention across the room on the admiral decked out in his dress uniform, only for her eyes to widen when she found herself the focus of the intensity of that gentleman’s blazing blue gaze.
And not, she was taken aback to realize, in a pleasant way.
Thunderous dark brows were lowered over those sky-blue eyes as he appeared to glare at her from between narrowed lids. His jaw was clenched, his mouth unsmiling, and a nerve pulsed above the tightness of that uncompromising jaw.
He looked, for all that Olivia was sure the two of them had never so much as set eyes on each other before this evening, as if he would like to place his large hands about her throat and squeeze until there was no more breath left in her body!
Yes, this is definitely love at first sight.
Rocky is initially mad because Olivia resembles her late aunt, who tried to ruin his reputation ages ago like only a spurned ho would do, and yes, he’s much older than our heroine. He soon realizes that Olivia is nothing like the other women in her family, and the author starts describing how his wang begins to bob and throb in disquieting detail.
Magnus had never before known a woman to respond so readily and so hotly. For her to climax only from being kissed and having her nipples touched and pleasured, as Olivia just had.
It was exhilarating.
Thrilling to think that he had been able to give her that pleasure without so much as touching between her thighs.
So much so, it had caused his cock to leak pre-cum inside his drawers.
Ever since the author has shrugged off the Harlequin shackles, she’s gone all potty-mouth and saucy and I can’t help but to be amused.
It was also affirmation that, with the right woman, his libido was as demanding and unrelenting as it had ever been—
Except Olivia could not be that right woman!
Too much stood between them.
The difference in their ages.
The past.
Oh God, most of all the past!
I have to laugh out loud at the hero going through this mental angst while his pee-pee is leaking up a flood in his drawers.
Olivia wants Rocky and she wants him now. Alas, her willing self-ruination is momentarily halted when her aunt tells her that Rocky might be that heartless scoundrel that led her aunt on before decamping, leaving poor Aunt Emelia to die a few days after giving birth to a stillborn.
Well, halted for a few minutes, that is.
Olivia gave a puzzled shake of her head. “Once my father became aware of my aunt’s condition, why didn’t he demand that Magnus marry her?”
The older woman smiled slightly. “You have met Rockborne. Do you really believe, even at the age of nineteen and despite knowing the sort of woman Emelia was, that his sense of honor would have allowed him to have abandoned her when he knew her to be carrying his child?”
Olivia’s eyes widened at the implication. “You do not believe he was the father of Emelia’s baby?”
“I do not.”
“Then who was?”
Franny’s laugh was humorless. “It could have been one of any number of gentlemen. Emelia was promiscuous. Nor did she confide knowledge of her child’s father to your mother. Your mother confirmed there were several gentlemen in Emelia’s life during those months before she died.”
Okay, the best humpity-hump ever show will resume shortly.
Sinful doesn’t have much of a plot, because any potential drama stemming from Rocky’s drama with our heroine’s aunt is quickly quelled by the key people in this story siding with Rocky by admitting that he wouldn’t be so dishonorable had Emelia been carrying his brat, plus everyone knows that she was quite the ho.
A part of me is darkly amused by the fact that Olivia here is as free with her honey with Rocky as Emelia reputedly was with other blokes back in those days, but because she offered her honey to the right guy, it’s alright and she won’t have the same fate and shame as Emelia. That’s right, ladies, you can be a ho, but you won’t be a ho kind of ho if you ho it out to your true love.
How do you know that the man is your true love when you decide to ho out to him? That’s the million dollar question right there that only romance authors will have the answer to.
Having said that, I have a lot of fun reading this one because, while it’s a rather unbelievable love-lust at first sight thing on his part, Rocky falls so hard and hard that the whole thing is rather sweet. He’s said to be this macho guy, so it’s all the more adorable when he is seized by doubts as to whether Olivia will feel the same way with him after she hears about him and her aunt. He could have been alpha and Tarzan and King Kong all in one, but instead, he just wants her to love him for him, awww.
For all her potentially self-destructive ways when it comes to chasing after men that make her horny, Olivia still comes off as a pretty sharp lady that evaluates a scenario from all points and asks pertinent questions before making up her mind about something. That’s a rare trait in romance heroines, as the genre favors those that jump to wrong conclusions with as much abandon as they jump on men that make them horny for the first time, so I like that in our heroine.
The love scenes are hot too, so hey, that’s one more to add to the list of pluses for this baby.
When I find myself thinking that these two will be alright despite how rushed their romance has been, I believe the author has done enough to make Sinful work. This one may not be the deepest romance around, and I never get my ravishing pirate here, but it’s sexy and flammable enough to give me a jolly fun time.
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