Promise of Pleasure

Fine, but I'm not going to read the rest of the series. Viscount Redvers is pursuing a coldblooded marriage of convenience while dallying with the Cinderella-esque daughter of the house. His actions are simply too deplorable to really credit his eventual, inevitable redemption, and the stepmother is too much a cardboard villain. The side plot involving Revers' equally disreputable friend romancing the young widow of an abusive marriage was actually more fun to read. Rather wooden prose--lots of telling us how people feel. Repeatedly. And the sex is uncomfortably coercive--our hero not only takes advantage of the heroine when she is drunk, but makes promises he doesn't mean to do so. Yuck.

I read about 60 pages of this before I had to put it down. I just couldn't get past all the inconsistencies of the characters. I may go back to it at some point, but for now I'm putting it aside.