Genre:

Honor Among Rogues

Alexander Edgware, Lord Xavier, has quite a reputation—for daring, wagering, and wickedness in all its delightful forms. But the wager before him is hardly his preferred sport: Xavier must persuade a proper young lady to attend his famously naughty Christmas house party—and stay the full, ruinous two weeks. Worse, the lady is Louisa Oliver, a doe- eyed bookworm Xavier finds quite charming. Yet to refuse the challenge is impossible—he will simply have to appoint himself Miss Oliver’s protector…

Mischief Among Misses

Louisa knows her chance for a husband has passed. But she has no desire to retire into spinsterhood without enjoying a few grand adventures first. When Lord Xavier’s invitation arrives, Louisa is more intrigued than insulted. And once inside the rogues’ gallery, she just may have a thing or two to teach her gentlemen friends about daring…

Review

SEASON FOR SURRENDER is that wonderful, rare thing…a romance novel that is witty, romantic, and deep.

Louisa Oliver is tired of being part of the background. She is so invisible to the ton that the scandal of having her engagement broken and her ex-fiancé now married to her stepsister had only lasted a little while and now the ton had moved on and forgotten her once again. This year she has decided to change that and the perfect place to do so is at the house party being hosted by the Earl of Xavier. I enjoyed Louisa’s take charge attitude about changing her life. She’s made up her mind and she sets forth a plan to make it happen. Throughout the story she changed from a shy young Lady into a woman who is willing to fight for what (and who) she wants.

Xavier is also tired, but he doesn’t really know what he’s tired of. His life is ideal. The ton worships him, women fall at his feet, and he can get away with any outrageous thing he wants to do. But more and more it isn’t making him happy. When he makes a bet with his cousin, Lockwood, that he can keep a Lady of good reputation at his holiday house party for two weeks, Xavier has no idea that it’s the one bet that will change his life forever. Xavier’s life seems perfect, but it isn’t his own.

Louisa is able to make Xavier see his life in a different way. She sees the real man, Alex, not the title. They help each explore the person that they want to be and along the way they find themselves falling more for the other. In the end, they have to decide on their own whom they really want to be and if the other is truly worth fighting for.

I loved everything about this book. My favorite thing was the way the author used words to describe feelings and sensations that the characters were having. I loved this one passage:

The scent of his skin was a revelation – spice and soap and something indefinable that made her want to breathe him in until she knew it by heart.

So she did. She lifted her head and kissed the angle of his neck and shoulder, the spot where one solid muscle met another. She inhaled, deeply, just there. Yes.

He bent his head, his lips finding her jaw, her ear, the curve of her neck. The pressure was gentle, like the tickle of petals. All she had to do was breathe, soak in the scent and the sensation and let her body melt.  

Swoon.

Reviewed by Carrie

READERS COMMENTS