Only His Passion. . .
With his estate near bankruptcy, Simon Blakesworth, Earl of Hartsfield already has a perilous secret to keep. Still, when he finds Mia Featherstone badly beaten, he doesn’t hesitate to shelter her in his home. . .and offer marriage to protect the lovely healer from her attacker. But Mia is concealing a danger this honorable earl never imagined–and can’t resist. . .
Can Save Her Love. . .
Mia’s valuable discovery on Simon’s land saved her patients’ lives. Now the only way she can help the man she’s always loved save his home is to secretly find the rest of a cache of hidden artifacts. But their passion is making it impossible for Mia to ever walk away–even from a love that may not survive the truth. . .
This was my first Kelly, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I cracked open this second book in a trilogy. What became obvious immediately is that this isn’t a traditional novel, its pretty serious in general tone, and fairly fast and loose with genre convention.
The heroine is the daughter to the regional “wise woman” healer, and a gifted healer in her own right, which apparently entitles her to completely buck convention and take lovers. It also is the impetus behind Mia’s somewhat graphic assault in the first Chapter. The way she later talks about her lovers makes it sound like its less about being evolved or earthy, and more about looking for love in all the wrong places…but I was confused by the emphasis on her sexuality. I felt like the author was trying to make a statement, but I was completely befuddled on what it was.
Mia is the long standing object of a crush of the neighborhood Earl, whose house she is brought to when discovered unconscious on his lands. I gather her appeal is some inner spark he sees, since the description of their relationship since childhood seems pretty tame and uninformative. At alternate turns, she seems a timid little girl and breathtaking siren, so that I was very confused by her. That’s not a criticism, just an observation. I generally like my heroines with a little room to grow or fairly “arrived”, and the combo of the two made it difficult for me to identify.
The Earl is man shrouded by mystery which is teased throughout until the final reveal. He also is very handsome, kind, and although struggles with some difficulty reading and apparently an overabundance of trust, is for the most part a sexy, strong man.
Enticing the Earl is part thriller mystery and part historical mass market romance, with the unlikely marriage of two people of completely different social classes. If you aren’t determined to have a typical genre Reg Rom read, and like some steamy vanilla action, you will probably enjoy this entertaining story of unlikely lovers battling odds and villains.
3.5 out of 6 Sexy mixing of social classes with a healer heroine
| Content Rating/Heat Index | |
|---|---|
| Mature Content |   |
| Lots of sex talk, murder, and more | |
| Intimacy | |
| Multiple intimate scenes | |
| Violence | |
| Assaults, murder, including assault of woman in first few chapters | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Appropriate for mature readers who enjoy intimate, mostly vanilla, content and don't mind some violence | |
