Hero: Diego Montalvo
Heroine: Lucinda Seton
Grade: 3 out of 5

The future of Charlotte Harris’s fi nishing school is in jeopardy when a charming Spaniard — world-famous magician Diego Montalvo — arrives to turn the bordering estate into a scandalous pleasure garden. Valiantly ignoring his wicked flirtations, outspoken Lucinda Seton vows to derail his plans and save the school, unaware that Diego’s true mission is to spirit the long-lost heiress away to Spain for a handsome reward! But before long Diego’s heart is playing tricks on him, and Lucy is falling under the illusionist’s spell. How can the Master of Mystery go through with his devilish scheme when all he wants is to make the lovely heiress his own?

I started this book thinking to hell with reading the other books in this series…let’s see if this book will be enough to make me want to read the other books in the series. While I thought the book was enjoyable enough, it wasn’t enough to make me rush out and want to read the others.

Lucy Seton has taken a teaching job at her old finishing school to help Mrs. Harris out was supposed to be easy peasy. She’ll teach some girls how to draw and she’ll try to meet someone who is richer and has more prestige than that no good Peter Hunsforth. Peter, who told Lucy that she was the kind of woman that a man dallies with, not one a man would marry. Can you imagine someone saying that to you? How the heck is that supposed to make you feel? I was so facking pissed off when I read that, I wanted to find Peter and choke the ever living life out of him.

What a jerk!

So enter Diego Montalvo…sexy Diego Montalvo. He’s thrown into the mix because he’s a master magician and he’s thinking of buying the property that borders Ms. Harris’ Finishing School. He wants to turn that property into a pleasure garden.

Can you imagine that? Building a pleasure garden right next door to a finishing school where there will be plenty of young misses waiting until dark to ditch their dorm rooms and rush off to see the sights over on the other side? Goodness. So Lucy and Mrs. Harris’ have a whole lot of things they need to get sorted out and they all surround a possible pleasure garden.

Diego’s on a search to find the long lost granddaughter of the man who holds the deed to his family home, Aboleda. He has tried buying it back from the man but this man is desperate to meet his granddaughter (and also for the heir that she could provide him with so that he can die in peace) that nothing short of Diego bringing his Catalina’s Lucinda back will make him happy enough to give Diego back Aboleda. So as soon as the terms are set, Diego sets out on a mad search to find the missing Lucinda Seton.

He’s been all over the place under the guise of searching for some property to purchase for a pleasure garden and when he finally meets Lucy and determines that she’s the one that he’s been searching for…he’s kind of mad because he’s far too attracted to her to not stay away from her. He’s drawn to her and he likes spending time with her. He can’t offer for her because he doesn’t think that he’s worthy enough for her since she’s destined for greatness as the granddaughter of this Spanish nobleman and he’s a lowly Count with no lands and nothing to his name. He’s known the world over for being the best magician ever but that’s not enough for him to want to claim Lucy as his own. He knows that he will never get to be with her since her grandfather wants to marry her off to the richest of the rich and blah blah blah.

The interactions between Lucy and Diego were what really drove this story for me but because the focus was on them, the secondary characters didn’t really pop for me. It’s like, they were there and they said and did things but I could have cared less about them because I only really cared about what was going on with Lucy and Diego. I found that quite peculiar since it’s usually the other way around with the secondary characters stealing the main character’s thunder but that wasn’t the case in this story…at least for me.

The interactions between Lucy and Diego were my favorite parts of this book. It would have been nice to get to know her friends a little more but for the most part, I enjoyed this story. Lucy was a good heroine and Diego was a hot hero, but some of the decisions he made in this story I just couldn’t get behind. His whole I wish I didn’t have to do this but I’m gonna do it anyway internal battle he was fighting with himself before he drugged Lucy kind of irked me. I forgave him in the end because he really did love Lucy. I guess my issues with this book werekind of personal preferences, like more depth to the secondary characters (even if they’ve already had their own stories). I love character driven stories and though this was one of those, the secondary characters didn’t get much love and I really wish they would have.

So this book was good but I’m not in any kind of rush to find out what happened to the other characters in the other books. I’m sure there will be plenty people out there that will enjoy this book more than me.

Word on the web is that Mrs. Harris and her “Cousin Michael” have a book coming out, I’m kind of curious about that book but the jury’s still out.

Reading Order:

Coming Soon:

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