Customer Reviews
My favorite Carlyle!
I have read many of this author's works, and this is my favorite by far. Max is such a wonderful man, and such a unique character for romance novels set in this time period. Imagine, a hero who has a job! But while society may look down on him, Catherine *admires* that he works to help others. Not that all is smooth sailing - Max stubbornly fights his attraction to a woman he thinks could never truly love him. But theirs is an irresistable connection, and I love that Cat fights for her man. And, surprisingly for me, I liked the murder mystery aspect of the storyline. Normally, I find such to be a distraction in a romance, but this one helps Max and Catherine (and the reader) get to know one anothers' characters better, so it actually helps the love story along. As in all of Carlyle's books the love scenes are deliciously steamy, and in this case very tender. They definitely make *love*, right from the start, even when they haven't even admitted it to themselves yet. It almost made me sad to finish this book, so I know I will be re-reading it often.
Not Her Best Work.....
Lady Catherine Wodeway, who is lonely since the loss of her husband almost two years prior, leaves her country home for London to spend time with her aunt. Her difficulties sleeping lead her to take early morning rides in Hyde Park where she runs into Maximilian de Rohan, a darkly arresting Italian magistrate investigating police corruption and the recent murder of a countess. Once they become involved, she helps with the investigation and ends up in the clutches of the murderer.
First, on the positive side, Ms. Carlyle is an excellent storyteller. Her writing is smooth and seamless and this book shows that talent. I liked the well-developed characters of Catherine and Max, as well as his crafty, Tarot card reading grandmother, Signora Castelli. Overall, I liked the murder mystery which will leave you guessing almost until the end. (I had an idea on the culprit, but certainly didn't figure out the whole story.) The love scenes were intensely erotic.
Now for the negative. The book was too long - 447 pages. That's a good 100 pages more than the usual. There are a lot of characters in this book, and it felt like they were all introduced in the first couple of chapters. This left me confused initially, although I did eventually sort them all out. Catherine and Max weren't together all that much in the first half of the book, which left me wondering how they had managed to fall in love. There seemed to be more focus on the murder mystery, rather than the love story, and I had to force myself not to skip ahead.
Apparently this is one book in a series about the Rutledge family. I have already read, "The Devil You Know", which was written after this one. It focuses on Catherine's bad boy brother, Bentley, and is one of my all time favorite romance novels. As for this one, I agree with a previous reviewer. If you predominantly like mysteries with romance as secondary, read it, otherwise I'd skip it to read "The Devil You Know".
I am stunned by all of the good reviews for this book!
I absolutely hated it. I have read a few other Liz Carlyle books and thought they were okay, but this one was horrible.
I hate romance novels where the author is trying too hard to write for a different genre. This is a ROMANCE novel, not a murder mystery. I could barely keep my attention on the story it was so tedious and uninteresting. I found myself skipping whole pages because I couldn't bear to read them.
The sex scenes were few and far between. The ones that did exist were passionate enough, but way too far into the story. I don't think Catherine and Max should have jumped in the sack by page 5, but I also don't think it should have taken 300 pages.
This book really turned me off to Liz Carlyle. I guess my tastes run a little differently than other reviewers here. If you want a fiction murder mystery with a LITTLE sex and romance thrown in, this is your book. If you like a ROMANCE novel with a little story thrown in, this is definitely not for you.
