Review: Tempted By His Kiss by Tracy Anne Warren.

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

Hero: Lord Cade Byron
Heroine: Miss Meg Amberley
Grade: 3.5 out of 5

Orphaned beauty Meg Amberley never planned to pose as Lord Cade Byron’s fiancée. Caught in a snowstorm, she takes refuge at his estate. Stranded together, Meg soon finds herself falling under Cade’s spell. When the roads clear, she intends to leave, but fate intervenes.

Haunted by his past, Cade Byron has buried himself in the country. Then Meg—with her lush curves—invades his house and his life. With her reputation compromised, he proposes a pretend engagement and a London season where she can find a husband.

But as their charade deepens, Cade can’t let her go . . . vowing to tempt her with a kiss that just may lead to forever.

I’ve never read a book by Tracy Anne Warren and truth by told, I’ve never even heard of her but I’ve got to say that I was pleasantly surprised with how decent this book was. I’m a sucker for the name Cade. I love it. I want to marry it. It’s one of those names that I want to name all of my heroes. There’s just something about that name that gets me all excited so when I read that the hero in this book is named Cade, I got a little giddy with that bit of information. I looked forward to meeting him and then I started the book and I met him.

And he was an ass but I didn’t care because his name was Cade and he was my precious. Cade served in the British Military and he fell in love with a young lass from France and was engaged to be married to her but then he’s caught by the Frenchies and they torture him for information but because he’s the hero of this story, he doesn’t reveal anything and returns home with honor and a broken spirit. The men who tortured him, tortured the one person he loved most in this world and her entire family. After they were done torturing him, they kicked him to the curb to die….only he didn’t, he lived and his hatred for the world and everything around him burned inside him, threatening to eat him alive.

He’s back home and has retreated to the far north corner of England and wants nothing to do with anything and just wants to live in peace with his aches and pains from his time as a prisoner of war.

A snow storm brings some unexpected guests to stay with Cade and they intrude on his peace and quiet. He’s not very happy about it but what can he do? As the days pass, Meg (the intruder and heroine of the story) is able to coax Cade out of hiding and a friendship of sorts begins. It’s a pretty shaky friendship since Cade isn’t used to having a friend but Meg doesn’t let Cade’s surly temper dissuade her from befriending him.

The way that these two fell in love was like lighting one of those candles with a long wick. You light the wick and you watch it slowly make it’s way to the candle itself slowly but surely. The love that grew between Cade and Meg was exciting on one hand and exasperating on the other. I’m not a fan of the misunderstandings, I’m not a fan of the second guessing and there was plenty of those in this book…from both of the main characters.

Each time that Cade thought the worst in Meg made me want to choke him out and every time Meg second guessed her worth and her relationship with Cade made me want to throttle her and though there were times that I wanted to physically hurt both of them, I still enjoyed this story.

Cade was a good hero, a solid hero who was who he was and didn’t apologize for it. He knew that he was a total dickhead sometimes and he didn’t care. He was sure enough in his masculinity that he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. They called him Mad Cade and he didn’t give a flying hoot. I really enjoyed his character.

Meg was a great heroine as well but she had a tendency to not listen. She had a tendency to do exactly what she was warned against not doing and that kind of nagged at me a little bit. There were times a plenty when I wanted to strangle her for not listening to Cade. There were times when I wanted to give her a good swift kick in his ass because she thought she knew it all and she didn’t heed any of Cade’s warnings. But despite that, Tracy Anne Warren does a great job of telling their story. She gave enough information so I wasn’t left wondering what was going on and she did a great job of holding my attention. I enjoyed this book and would recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to read a historical romance novel about two unlikely people falling in love and helping each other overcome personal conflicts. It’s a good read.

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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