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Twice Tempted By A Rogue (2010)

by Tessa Dare(Favorite Author)

3.64 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

034551887X (ISBN13: 9780345518873)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Ballantine Books

series

Stud Club

review 1: Three and half stars.Overall I would say I didn't like this as much as the first book in the Stud Club series – and BTW such a misleading series name!So, Rhys St Maur, Lord Ashworth, has inherited a ruined estate in Devonshire. He travels to visit the estate, with the full intention of never returning, and stops at the local inn where he is transfixed by the local innkeeper.Meredith Maddox (nee Lane) inherited the local inn from her husband, a man older than her own father. She is desperately trying to keep the village alive in the absence of Lord Ashworth. She also had a major crush on Rhys when he was a young boy, in fact she never really got over it.Much like the first book, the hero and heroine take little time to realise that they have strong feelings for each other... more. Indeed, Rhys has the banns read in church the first Sunday that the vicar holds a service! But, it takes both Rhys and Merry most of the book to reconcile their fundamentally opposed life philosophies. Rhys has developed a fatalistic approach to life; his experiences with an abusive father and in the war have led him to believe that he leads a charmed life and cannot be killed – no matter how much he might, at times, wish to die. On the other hand, Merry has fought hard to preserve the village, to develop the inn and generate trade to keep the villagers employed. She finds Rhys' blind belief in fate to be offensive as it negates all her hard efforts to save the community.Against the backdrop of their romance is a sub-plot involving smuggling French brandy (amongst other things), the continued search for the murderer of Leo (the event which pretty much opened the first book), the building of a house on the old Ashworth estate, a secondary romance which is all done and dusted in about 10 minutes and the discovery of what really happened on the night that the Ashworth estate burnt down.Rhys didn't really work for me as a character. I understood his fatalism but I couldn't see how that applied to him just assuming that Merry would marry him – we didn't see inside his head (in fact I still don't understand why he thought it would work that way). Similarly, I couldn’t see why he refused to sleep with Merry before they were married – and then changed his mind! Finally, towards the end he can't forgive Merry for something and I couldn't understand why he was angry at her – at himself for sure, but she had no idea he held those beliefs.Finally, the ending ties off some loose ends that were so light-weight that the denouement became unnecessary – TBH I didn't care and found the unveiling of a villain fell a bit flat. It too was over in about 5 minutes flat.So, that was all very negative. The writing was good and I enjoyed the story I just felt that Rhys character didn't really hang together and none of the characters other than Merry and Rhys were fleshed out at all.
review 2: Okay Dare really needs to stop making it hard for me to rate a freaking book. This is the 3rd book of her's I'm having difficulty rating. lol The first half of this wasn't very promising. I was even tempted a few times to DNF it but it picked up in the middle and I enjoyed the second half of the story very much. I'm flip flopping between a 3 and 4 star rating because of that. I had issues with the characters and plot set up but the writing once again excelled and the character development and growth was wonderfully done. I hated Meredith in the beginning of this but I grew to admire and cheer her on near the end with everything she went through in here and her past history with Rhys. The fact that she finally was willing to let go and love her man openly and completely was wonderful to see. She truly surprised me. Yay! Dare really knows how to write endearing independent courageous selfless heroines, some of them can be set in their ways but they have big loving hearts. A big plus for me. It's one of the many reasons I keep coming back to her work. Rhys was captivating as a hero he didn't really impress me until the middle of the story (which surprised me the most) I was expecting to go ga-ga over him the first chapter in. But the more I learned about him the more I enjoyed him, he's quite the heart breaker with his sweet gestures, tortured tragic history and bashful insecurities. For a virile giant brute I found those contradiction intriguing and adorable. The plot here was a little hard to swallow for many reasons but I'm trying to keep this short. Let's just say everything that came off forced, rushed and unconvincing in the beginning of the story came together beautifully in the second half. less

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