Lessons of Desire
by Madeline Hunter
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Book Reviews of Lessons of Desire
Book Review: An Impossible Love
Summary: 5 Stars
Lord Elliot Rothwell is a young titled scholar on a mission to save the family name. He is intelligent, handsome, and brooding while also the dapper gentleman. Phaedra finds herself irresistibly attracted to this man who challenges her world of ideals.
While abroad in Italy they are brought together and even though neither one forgets the reality that awaits them back home in England and the impossibility of their relationship lasting in that world, they indulge in a passion they are helpless to resist. It is a passion made all the more desperate and raw by eventual separation they know must come.
Phaedra inspires in Elliot the need to possess and Elliot inspires in Phaedra the desire to succumb.
This novel is one of Ms. Hunter's best novels yet. The characters are convincing as they evolve, making compromises with themselves and each other as they grow in their relationship. What drew me so completely into this story was the bittersweet ardor and agony the characters experience and how well Hunter portrayes this.
I read many many novels and books, too many romance novels, and most of Ms. Hunter's. While some of her books fall a little flat, this is not one of them. This book keeps the reader hooked until the very end with her mix of all the emotions that love and desire teach us. This is what a romance should be. Don't be swayed by the reviews of those who just want the same cookie cutter romance over and over gain. Read this book for what it is meant to be; a vicarious experience of impossible love and incredible longing.
Excerpt:
"And sometimes when they lay like this, slowly kissing, while she waited for the erotic lessons that had occupied their recent nights, she would, as she did now, unaccountably want to weep.
She embraced him closely so his caresses would pause. She did not understand this emotion, this drenching nostalgia. Nor did it make sense that she wanted to savor something so piercingly painful."
Book Review: Wow...bring on Christian.
Summary: 5 Stars
Madeline Hunter, in my book, tops the list of "must read" romance writers. I put Mary Balogh a close second, this based strictly on writing ability and creativity. They both possess the ability to put me into the worlds they create and never, absolutely never, toss me back out abruptly because of a wrong note.
The edge goes to Hunter, I have to admit to my chagrin, only because her writing has more, well, more....eroticism. There, I said it. Balogh does eroticism in a more restrained manner and certainly less frequently. And I guess it comes down to admitting what brings us to romance novels in the first place.
Anyway, that aside, this book has been a great follow-up to Rules of Attraction, which I found to be one of her best. The story of Phaedra and Elliott blew me away. Another very different story, with very different and interesting characters. I read it straight through, in one evening session, the day it came. But as with all Hunter's books, I will undoubtedly read it again and again.
Her characters are true, her research spot-on, her descriptions of the times and scenery pulled me there as truly as if I'd been standing in Phaedra's shoes.
With so much romance "junk" out there, poorly conceived and written yet garnering 5 star reviews, when something like this comes along, I have to put my two cents in. If you want intelligent writing, characters who leap off the page, great dialogue and anything but a cookie-cutter plot line, this is the book (along with the first in the series, The Rules of Seduction".
My one complaint: The next book, previewed at the back of this one, doesn't come out until next summer. I could be dead by then! If so, I'll go to my grave cursing. I don't want to miss Christian's story, although after reading the chapter, I'm not so sure the story involves Christian and Rose as I thought it might. Guess I'll check Ms. Hunter's website for more tidbits.
Happy reading.
Book Review: Where does the leading lady get off?
Summary: 1 Stars
I hated this book. Phedra was oblivious to the chaos and frustration she perpetuated. She is supposed to be a strong woman who is ahead of her time. Instead she is constantly the damsel in distress. She had no thought to those around her who were constantly saving her from herself. Phedra's mode of dress and demeanor in this timeframe is akin to me coming to work in a bikini in the middle of January today. Inappropriate. However, I could forgive her that, I am after all a woman with feminist attitudes, but the fact that she doesn't care enough about Elliott to curb her behavior is inexcusable. I wanted him to do the whole "throw her over his shoulder and ravish her" thing after the first couple scenes. She needed to be put in her place and maybe a good orgasm could chill her out a bit and take her down a notch. The fact that he put up with her just means he was hard up, not that he was truly in love with her. If you don't connect with the main character and constantly wish someone would snap her out of her selfish pity party and internal reflections, then you can't enjoy the book. I was rooting for Elliott the whole time, not Phedra. Unfortunately this was the first book I read from this author. I don't think I will read anything else from her because of it.Book Review: Pearls Before Swine
Summary: 3 Stars
I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately I was very disappointed, mostly because of the heroine. She is not someone I would know or want to know. I am no prude, but in my opinion, "free love" and romance are oxymorons.
Even though Ms. Hunter went to great lenghts in her depiction of how Phaedra was raised to be a free thinker, I found her to a selfish, closed minded ideologue. She did not care about how her choices impacted those she cared about and who cared about her. She was unyielding in her opinions and not open to discourse unless it reinforced her own positions.
The strangest thing about her philosophies was that she refused to reconsider them even though she was fully aware of the negative impact her mother's lifestyle and choices had on her.
I would not call her a free thinker. She was a mouthpiece for her mother, but what were her own opinions? A free thinker does not agree with everything they are told. Rather, they think independently and critcally and come to their own conclusions.
My own conclusions are that Phaedra is one of the worst heriones ever featured in a romance novel and that wasting a fine hero like Lord Elliot on her is like throwing throwing pearls before swine.
Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
Sooner or later it happens to the best of them. Madeleine Hunter is one of my most favorite romance writers. But like others before her, she reached a point with this book where she just lost inspiration.
The heroine is pathetic. Feminism is all fine, but we all know that even Gloria Steinham got married. I have yet to meet a woman who madly loves a guy, and I mean loves -- not lusts after him -- and admires him greatly, but gets sick with hysteria at the thought of marrying him. I agree with the reviewer who notes that there is no chemistry between the leads. Also, the setting for their first coupling is just too far-fetched. Phaedra and Elliot are stranded in a tower in Italy with an angry mob who demands the "witch" (Phaedra) in the streets below. And this in the 19th century Europe! Simply does not hold water. Let's hope Ms. Hunter regains her usual flair for romance.