When I turned the last page of Seduced by Your Spell, I found myself thinking, "And?"

Somehow I had read all 373 pages without ever really feeling part of this story. It was as if I were waiting for the tale to really begin, rather than feeling that it had reached a conclusion. Yes, hero and heroine are now together and have vowed love for each other, but the route by which they get there is entirely unsatisfactory.

Madeline Fallon, Lady Redcombe, is a witch - one of a group who work for the government under the direction of Lord Gallo, Jasper Reeves. When she is asked to look into the disappearances of some women, she goes against Lord Gallo and the committee who usually assign work to the ladies, wanting to find them herself. This leads to a breach with Lord Gallo and the other witches: Madeline is now on her own.

Except she's not. Lord Gallo keeps popping up to try to persuade her back to the base of operations at Lavender House. Madeline wants her freedom and wants to experience her full powers, and for some reason Lord Gallo seems to want to protect her from that.

This story is characterized by hero and heroine saying one thing and thinking another. All the time. I lost count of the number of times Lord Gallo manages to look unruffled (while inside his emotions are churning) and Madeline seems interested in other men (while inside she is really desperate for Lord Gallo). Why Gallo/Jasper is as he is remains largely unexplained. Minimal character development, a decidedly unromantic romance aspect, the missing-women plot thread possessing far more potential than is realized, and an ending that feels truncated left me disappointed by both character and plot in this book and finding it unmemorable.