Helpful Score: 3
Former Harlequin author Jordan (The Heart Breaker) writes highly charged erotic historical romances. Her latest--set in 1810 England--opens with a graphic bondage scene, and the thrust of the book is the sexual education of a beautiful but repressed widow. Damien "Lord Sin" Sinclair keeps company with a depraved aristocratic set devoted to carnal pleasures. Lady Vanessa Wyndham falls into his clutches when her scapegrace brother falls afoul of Sin in an incident involving the accidental crippling of Sin's sister. Challenged to cards, the young man loses heavily, and it's up to Lady V to convince Sin not to foreclose. A nasty bargain is struck: she'll become Sin's mistress to pay off the family debt. But ultimately it becomes clear that the notorious nobleman has met his match: "He had tutored her in the arts of love-making, but she had taught him to love." Readers who devour the erotic historicals of Susan Johnson (see above review) will enjoy this, but those turned off by scenes featuring masturbation and ivory dildos may choose to pass.
