Lord of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle

I am a horrible friend. I have to put that out there. *sigh* Delilah was sweet enough to send me an E-ARC of Lord of Pleasure and I dropped the ball. *headdesk* Thankfully, the book's only been out for a short time, so it's not like I'm MONTHS overdue. Still. *sigh* Sorry! :(


Anyway, on to the book.

Lord of Pleasure is book 2 in her School of Gallantry series. LoP tells the story of Charlotte, an impoverished widow with some interesting ideas on how to avoid going to the poorhouse and Alexander, Earl of Hawksford. They meet in a very unique way, when Charlotte basically propositions him and he refuses.

If you knew the history of Alexander, you'd know this is WAY outside the way he usually is. See, up until about a year ago, Alexander was known as the Lord of Pleasure. He loved women and women definitely loved him. Then his father died, he got full responsibility of his mother and five younger sisters and realized that he had to become more responsible. Hence, him turning down Charlotte's offer.

But, that's not the end of the story. What started out as an act of desperation Charlotte's part turns into something much, much more.

This is what I love about this series. Delilah introduced Alexander for just a second in Mistress of Pleasure (book 1), but he made such an impression that I wanted to know more about him. She wrote (or is writing) a total of 5 books for this series. Each book is written at the exact same time (as in all of the events happen all at the same time...sorry for lack of clarification). So, events you see in one book, happen in the next book but in a completely different perspective. It's a very unique take on historical romance, but I think it works.

In LoP, the things I enjoyed the most were the...well, almost comedic perfection of the interplay between Alexander and Charlotte, Alexander and his sisters, and Alexander and his friend, who plays a pretty significant roll in this book.

Was it perfect? No, but the good much outweighed the bad and I am definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series. *crossing fingers*


Overall Rating: B



PS. I'm planning on a little...treat for one lucky reader of this blog. It's going to take me a couple of days to put together, but I hope to announce the contest and the prize by Sunday. Keep your eye out. :0