Hero: Oliver Leighton, Lord Norcroft
Heroine: Kathleen McDavid
Grade: 3.5 out of 5
To break a centuries-old curse, beautiful, headstrong Lady Kathleen MacDavid knows she must ignore every rule of propriety by seducing—and marrying—the Earl of Norcroft. So she sets off for London, braving scandal and ruin to achieve her goal . . . until a crazy bump on the head makes her forget nearly everything.
The thrill of winning a bet—that he’d be the last of his set to wed—hasn’t eased the earl’s pain of losing his friends to marriage. Still, he’d be willing to settle down if he could meet someone worthy of his love—and desire. But he has met no such woman, until Kathleen is brought to him. Suspicious of her motives, he’s determined to resist her seductive ways. But sometimes even the most proper gentleman finds it expedient to act improperly . . .
Alright, I showed up to this party when they were cleaning up because this is the last book in this series. This series is about four friends who placed a bet. The last man standing (and unwed) was to win the money and the cognac. How funny that of all the guys to win the bet, it would be the man who wasn’t in the least scared of marriage, oh no, it was the one man in on the bet who WANTED to get married but everyone got their turn before he did.
This story is Oliver Leighton’s story and I enjoyed the book but wasn’t exactly wowed by it. It was a fast read, one that didn’t take me very long to get through but I’m not sure what it was about this book. I mean, I found it very easy to put this book down at night. I wasn’t exactly enthralled by this story.
Oliver Leighton is a romantic hero, a beta in the sense that he wasn’t very scholarly and that his Mom can shoot better than him….but even though he wasn’t a violent sort (or very athletic for that matter) I still really liked him. I liked him better than I liked Kate and I don’t even know what bothered me about her.
Kathleen “Kate” McDavid comes to England to marry Oliver because of a long going curse between her family and his. They must marry to break the curse and their coming together is a match five hundred years in the making. Kathleen’s family dabbles in magic but they’re not very good at it. They cast spells but more times than not, the spells never work. So Kathleen is a realistic sort but who has come to believe in the curse (against her better judgement) because there was a string of bad luck in her family that she can’t explain any other way. So in an effort to break the curse, she’s finally come around to end it. It is her duty and she’s willing to do it so that there will be no more bad things happening to her peeps.
So she goes to England searching for Oliver and hoping to talk him into marrying her and ending the curse…but along the way, she falls and knocks her head and wakes up with …amnesia.
I hate this storyline, I really do and this year I have read too many hot damn amnesia storylines but in this story’s case, it wasn’t the amnesia that I didn’t like. That wasn’t the problem at all, my problem with this story was even though I enjoyed the story, I just didn’t care about the characters. Well except for Oliver and his Mom. I enjoyed both of them quite a bit. I loved Oliver’s flirty nature but I couldn’t really care for Kate and her family. I don’t know what it was about her, I just didn’t like her.
The way that she would laugh and flirt with Oliver one minute and then take offense and ruin a good time got on my nerves throughout the book and I know that it’s not the author’s fault but because I couldn’t care for the heroine, I found myself falling out of the story more than once everytime that I picked up the book.
All in all, the book is okay. The storyline lags a bit in the middle and the talk of magic and curses gets old and just fell flat for me….and then at the end, the story wraps up really quickly and I felt let down. I don’t think that I didn’t enjoy this book because I didn’t read the other books, this could have been a stand alone for all I knew because the other men in Oliver’s circle of friends weren’t in this story at all but this book was just okay.
I enjoyed the book for the most part but I’m not jumping for joy after having read it so this is a total C+ read for me…just average.
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
I don’t have this book yet, but I did find one of hers that I had A LITTLE BIT WICKED and heard its first in a series so I shall be reading this one.
I haven’t read a amnesia story in a while, so I’m interesting in trying this one. When I’m able to read, I shall give you my thoughts on this one! Gonna go look if you read A LITTLE BIT WICKED too 🙂
I’ve never read an amnesia story ~ not sure that they’re my cuppa. I’ve been wanting to read a Victora Alexander for awhile (she’s one I’ve never read), but I don’t think I’ll start with this one ~ although I do like the cover.