Into Temptation

by Penny Vincenzi

Spoils of Time (3)

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The Second World War is over, peace has been declared but the ravages remain and the Lytton family must confront the future and themselves. Kit Lytton, blinded in his early twenties in service for the RAF, is coming to terms with the fact that his father is not Oliver Lytton, as he thought, but the famous children's author Sebastian Brooke. His sense of betrayal is immense, but worse is the discovery that the woman he loves is his sister. Barty Miller is now in the curious position of owning show more a majority share of Lyttons, the publishing house belonging to the family that brought her up. Now rich and powerful, though alone, Barty is far from the cowed slum child rescued by Celia Lytton years before. But how will she act now towards the family who always made her feel she did not belong? And what secrets in the Lytton past remain to be discovered? show less

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5 reviews
Last book in the Lytton trilogy, covering 1953 to 1958. This felt really slapdash to me. I found tiresome Adele's preoccupation with leaving war-torn Paris without saying goodbye to Luc. I'm sure she had PTSD, but it wasn't portrayed nearly as sympathetically as Oliver's (from WW1).

Celia and Barty seemed like total Mary Sues.

Over the course of the trilogy, multiple women contemplated abortions, but always* went ahead and had the children, and somehow everything worked out. *Izzie had an abortion, and was emotionally scarred for life. The only main woman character I can think of who didn't have children was Lily, who was offstage for most of the second two books. While children often resemble their parents in some ways, this book show more presented them as likely to be carbon copies of one parent. This is unrealistic and not very interesting to read about.

I almost didn't care enough to finish it. And the tacked-on resolution of the money issue with Charlie Patterson and Jenna seemed forced and poorly thought out. I was really disappointed with this one, and I doubt I will seek out any more of this author's work.
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I enjoyed the first two books so much that I bought the third book straight away in hard back - very rare! I wasn't disappointed this saga has had the same level of impact upon me as The Thorn Birds did when I first watched the adaptation as a young teenager.
½
This is a very thick book to read and from ebook, it contained 720 pages and took me more than a week to read. First of all, i like Penny's writing. Her books are about family saga; filled with love, heartache, sadness, conflicts and betrayal and it is interesting to read. And this book contained all the emotion rolled into one.

This book is the 3rd book of The Spoilts of TIme and is a continuation of Lytton Family saga. The announcement of Celia to retire and to remarried marked the start of the book and the story then progress onto the life without Celia at Lytton and the way the other family members coped with her absence and the conflicts that arised from the annoucement such as Kit's refusal to acknowledged his mother's remarried show more and cutting himself from her; Celia's confusion over her decision, has ensued. The story also contained subplots between Barty and her new found love; Charlie and their life together, Elspeth (grandaughter of Celia) and her beau, Keir and her subsequent affairs with Mark Forrester, Adele and her marriage failure and conflicts with her own childrens, etc.

Overall, the book is very engaging but one may find is taunting with the number of pages that it have. I was at the beginning but as the story progressed, the thickness of the book does not matters as much anymore ;)
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More of the American Littons. Cecilia ends the series

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33+ Works 5,184 Members
Penny Vincenzi was born Penelope Hannaford in Bournemouth, United Kingdom on April 10, 1939. She attended secretarial college and then joined the staff of the Daily Mirror. She later became a journalist and wrote for numerous publications including The Times, the Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and the Tattler. Her first novel, Old Sins, was show more published in 1989. She wrote 17 novels and two short story collections during her lifetime including The Best of Times, An Absolute Scandal, Sheer Abandon, An Outrageous Affair, A Perfect Heritage, A Question of Trust, and the Spoils of Time Trilogy. She died on February 25, 2018 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Common Knowledge

Canonical title
Into Temptation
People/Characters
Celia Lytton; Lord "Bunny" Arden; Barty Miller; Jenna Miller; Charlie Patterson

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
DDC/MDS
823.914Literature & rhetoricEnglish & Old English literaturesEnglish fiction1900-1901-19991945-1999
LCC
PR6072 .I525 .I58Language and LiteratureEnglishEnglish Literature1961-2000
BISAC

Statistics

Members
429
Popularity
71,641
Reviews
4
Rating
(3.96)
Languages
English, French, German, Swedish
Media
Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
ISBNs
19
ASINs
8