Because You're Mine
Lisa Kleypas


ISBN-10:
0380781441
ISBN-13:978-0380781447
Publisher: HarperCollins
Line: Avon
Release Date: Oct 25, 2011
Pages: 384
Retail Price: $ 7.99




Genre:
Historical
Heat Level: Hot
Rating:

“I don’t care about your conscience. All I want is for you to kiss me again.”

Lady Madeline Matthews would rather shame herself than sacrifice her freedom. To avoid marrying an aging, lecherous lord, she seeks out the company of Logan Scott, for a torrid affair with the notorious womanizer would surely condemn her in the eyes of good society.

In truth, Logan is an intensely private man tormented by past betrayals. Now a forward little minx, completely at sea in London’s sophisticated whirl, is disrupting his life with her vibrant charm and unspoiled beauty. But when what begins with a kiss threatens to blossom into something more rapturous and real, will Logan and Madeline have the courage to drop the masks they hide behind in the name of love?

Review

Sigh. This is one of those books I have both in print and digital format. The print copy had to be replaced several years ago when the pages became dog-eared and started falling out due to over use.

The plot is one of those tried and true tropes where the heroine is determined to ruin herself to avoid marrying an aging lord. After hearing scandalous things about Logan Scott, an actor and a well-known notorious womanizer, Madeline Matthews decides he will more than do for a torrid affair. That should ruin her good and proper.

But Logan Scott isn’t all he appears to the outside world. He’s a private man dealing with his own demons and betrayals. To say he had a horrid childhood would be understating the matter. His parents were wretched to him and the only solace he had in his young life was his friendship with Andrew, heir to the Earl of Rochester (truly a frightful man!).

Well you can imagine Logan’s surprise to be literally propositioned by Madeline. She’s innocent, that’s her first offense. She’s also young and it’s obvious she’s quality. She’s beautiful and charming, which makes the whole ordeal of keeping her at arm’s length not just a chore, but an exercise in self-control. Logan Scott is, after all, only a man.

So succumb he does. And that’s when everything but the kitchen sink hits the fan. Not because he’s taken an innocent to his bed but because he’s fallen in love and only then does he discover the real reason she sought him out for an affair.

Oh the angst. I so love angst, and Logan and Madeline’s love story had enough to angst up three more books. He has his pride and wants nothing to do with her after that but fate intervenes and he has no choice but to deal with her. And if I thought the sexual tension between them had reached fever pitch when she was chasing him, Ms. Kleypas managed–I know not how–to raise it another notch in the aftermath of her ‘discovery’.

If you like dark and brooding heroes, you will swoon and sigh over Logan Scott. Because underneath his cold and gruff exterior, he is a man brimming with heart felt emotions. When he loves, he loves deeply. And I’m not just talking about the love he tries to squelch for Madeline, but the love he has for his good friend, Andrew, and Julia (of Somewhere I’ll Find You).

Madeline is dogged in her pursuit of him and deals with him patiently, even as he rejects her love at every turn. But even she has her limits and it’s when she finally reaches hers that we reach the climax of the story.

Needless to say, this is a sexy, heart wrenching, tension-wrought, emotional read. Definitely one of Lisa Kleypas’s best. From me it gets the 5 Star Chart Topper rating. It’s not only worth a read, but it deserves to be read over and over again.

Reviewed by Beverley


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