Mar 8 2013

REVIEW: Love’s Revenge by Monica Burns

By Dabney • D Reviews • • Tags: ,

The bitch had done her work well the day she’d convinced Baron Townsend that Quentin was the father of her bastard child. It had set Townsend off in a wild frenzy to avenge his youngest daughter’s so-called honor. Almost overnight, the man had set out to take from Quentin as much of the Devlyn fortune he could.

Quentin Blackwell, the Devil of Devlyn, has returned home five years after a bitter betrayal by the woman he loved. He’d like nothing better than to extract his pound of flesh and when the opportunity presents itself, he’s more than eager to accept the challenge. Especially when it means exploring Sophie Hamilton’s delicious curves. He’s determined not to give his heart away, but there’s something about Sophie he can’t resist. At forty-one, Sophie Hamilton is beyond just sitting on the shelf. Hopes of love and family are a lost dream at this stage of her life. But her inexperience in the ways of the flesh can easily be remedied, and the Devil of Devlyn, despite his tender age of thirty-two, is just the man to accomplish the task. As she finds passion and pleasure in the arms of a younger man, she struggles with the notion of a love that can bridge the age difference between them.

Dear Ms. Burns:

Here’s my short review of Love’s Revenge: I have better wallpaper in my house than found in this book.

Love's Revenge by Monica BurnsLove’s Revenge isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read in the past year but it’s one of the least credible. Apart from the reasonable writing, there’s nothing else in this book I could take seriously.

Sophie Hamilton is a never married forty-one year old who suddenly–for the reader is just plunked down into her life with no real background information given–propositions a notorious rake whom her evil father and sister ruined five years earlier. The rake, Quentin Blackwell, a man who constantly suffers from a headstrong hard-on, is, was once engaged to Sophie’s much younger half-sister Eleanor whom Quentin caught being ridden by a lowly stable boy. Eleanor was promiscuous and dishonest and, when she discovered she’d been knocked up, she blamed Quentin. The Hamilton patriarch, Baron Townsend, believed Eleanor and demanded that Quentin marry her. When Quentin declined, Townsend began a successful campaign to beggar the Devlyn coffers. The bad Baron also married off Eleanor to Sophie’s one and only suitor, a milksop of a man named Shively.

The novel begins when unescorted Sophie calls on Quentin and offers him a deal.

“And exactly what do you have to offer me that will enable me to extract revenge on your father and sister?”

“I’ve kept a copy of my father’s illicit financial dealings for the past five years.” Her voice was not more than a whisper as she sat rigid in front of him. “I am willing to turn those ledgers over to you for a price.”

“An interesting proposition.” Interesting? Fuck the woman was offering him manna from heaven. But why? He narrowed his gaze at her. “You’re willing to betray your father?”

“Yes…” She paused slightly. “And Eleanor.”

In return for her family’s destruction, Sophie wants to get even and get laid.

“You say you want revenge. How would marrying me give you that?”

“It wouldn’t, or at least not much,” she said as pink color crested over her cheekbones. “I confess marrying you would infuriate Eleanor given her inability to trap you into marriage.”

“What else?” Quentin narrowed his gaze at her.

“I wanted…wanted to experience what it’s like between a man and a woman.”

Quentin, whose dick is at high alert at the thought of tumbling Sophie, thinks her idea sounds grand and the two are married three days later although not before they have multiorgasmic sex in a cabin in which Sophie took refuge to escape a sudden rainstorm. 

Sophie’s father is unhappy at her choice of spouse and, when he discovers their marriage, he storms into Devlyn’s salon and begins beating her. Sophie tries to without success to fight him off with a fireplace poker and is rescued by an enraged Devlyn and his two massive hounds. After Quentin tosses the bad Baron out the door, Sophie, moved to compassion by her father’s cruelty, realizes that revenge won’t heal her or Quentin’s wounds. Quentin, unsurprisingly, vows to continue seeking vengeance.

Will Sophie and Quentin come to consensus? Will all the coming Sophie and Quentin do lead them to love? Will there be a scene where Eleanor successfully tries to make Sophie jealous? Will Sophie suddenly become the most beautiful woman of the ton causing Quentin to sulk? Will the reader ever learn how Sophie looks as though she’s decades younger than she is? Will Quentin be able to manage his manhood? I didn’t care.

The book concludes with an epilogue replete with miraculous fertility, near-death, and declarations of delirious devotion. None of which are remotely believable. I give Love’s Revenge a D.

Dabney

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