How to Seduce a Sinner looks like ninety percent of the other historical romances I’ve seen recently: a partially-clad woman in a clinch with a partially-clad chap. The embossed lettering spells out yet another irritatingly cheesy title. More of the same.
Fortunately,
Adrienne Basso's story has a little more to recommend it. Our heroine, Dorothea Ellingham, is a bit more interesting than most, although rather direct and abrupt in some of her conversation. Her behavior is unlikely for the Regency period--at least that she
gets away with kissing various gentlemen without getting an appalling reputation.
Our hero is called Carter Grayson. (I could go off on a tangent here about the weird names that abound in American-authored books, with excessive use of
"Grayson" for both first and last names. I’ll leave that topic alone except to say who on
Earth would give their son, a marquess and heir to a dukedom, the name "Carter,"
which represents someone who makes their living in a less than aristocratic
way?) Once I managed to ignore the name, I found myself following our two main characters
and their separate needs. Dorothea must find a man she can marry who will fire her blood with his kiss; Carter
wants a wife who isn’t one of the appalling simpering girls his father seems to want to select for him. Dorothea and Carter find a match in each other, but they find that marriage and passion aren’t enough for true happiness--they
also need love.
A side plot involves Major Roddington, a military hero who the reader knows has been involved in plotting some dodgy stuff. He can hardly be considered a proper
"baddie," however, and I found the aspects of the plot involving Roddy to be a bit of a stretch in terms of credibility.
All in all, How to Seduce a Sinner is another fairly bland and unmemorable romance - like
ninety percent of the others that look like this on the bookshelf.