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Shira Mazor shiramazor — I have no idea when I read this book. Some summer in college? I must have. I feel like I read it on some trip back from Baton Rouge... How fitting. I just remember that the film adaptation was perpetually on Dartmouth's movie station during my last quarter. I would always somehow tune in as Ashley Judd would mutter, "Get some shrimp for supper."

Nefasto Nefasto nefasto — This book assumes you've read the first book in the series. So it's hard to get into. And just not my style.

Elliott Eubank elliott101457 — First line: "Oh, love me, Jack, love me!" The Frenchwoman's passion-frenzied hands, so small and dainty in repose, now resembled the claws of a silver bird of prey tearing at the tender skin of his back, as Jack O'Connell, Irish soldier of fortune, rakehell, gambler, thief, cutpurse, occasional highwayman, and all-around rascal, strove with all his might, bull-like strength, and not inconsiderable will to obey his rapacious mistress. Unfortunately the quote above is about the heroine's father, not the hero. The book opens with Jack O'Connell, occupation Randy Irish Lad Roaming Europe, having an interrupted night of passion with a near-albino French vixen noblewoman and getting ejected into the night with his life barely intact. Several years later, Jack and his erstwhile crony, drunken priest Father Liam, run across a scruffy imp called Angel with silver hair and gray eyes. Jack, drunken womanizer that he is, doesn't see any similarities to his long-ago one-night-stand and he and Liam become adoptive daddies to the foul-mouthed little Satan worshipper (she says Lucifer is her pop). To protect her virtue, they dress her as a boy, but she gets some schooling in the female social niceties from an old retired classy whore-friend of Jack's. (Of course it turns out to be advantageous later.) One night, Angel (now called Jackie McKier) and Liam are setting up a fake mugging on the street to lure in a do-gooder, who they will then rob. The hero, the Duke of Avalon (aka "Satan" Blade), suspects what they're up to and hauls them into his den of iniquity and says he won't sic the law on them if they deliver a message for him. Unknown to them, Avalon is plotting to get William of Orange on the throne and depose James II. Jackie is reluctant and her pride at being caught is smarting to the extent that she wants to kill him, but this job leads her down a path of many adventures and some heartbreak as she eventually decides she loves the Duke, but her own assumptions about him (and his about her) make it all seem very hopeless and tangled until almost the very end. This is a book that really defied all my expectations. I was expecting a bodice ripper. (It wasn't.) I wondered if the hero and heroine would ever have any genuine romantic moments or even have sex. (They don't.) I like being surprised by a book, even if I go in thinking I'm going to get something different. If a romance doesn't go by-the-numbers and fits into predictable categories, believe me I'm more inclined to enjoy it. This story is mainly about Angel/Jackie and her growth from a thief and pickpocket with no loyalties but to herself and her "family" to becoming a loyal supporter of King William III. It climaxes when she's forced by foreign intrigue to ruin the trust she had managed to gain with her new monarch. It all ends happily, of course, but Jackie gets hurt and has crises of conscience in the meantime about her disguise as a man vs. her female feelings, and her haphazard Catholic indoctrination by Father Liam vs. the Protestant king she has grown to know personally. The hero comes into the picture more fully during the last half of the book. His reputation is notorious, but that's all it is - a reputation based on rumor and innuendo, which he has done little to dispel in the interest of being given a wide berth in order to go about his treason. (Well, that's what it amounts to! But they're the good guys in this story.) His backstory was enough to make him quite an interesting guy, dedicated to the science of the day. His parents were scientists who traveled the world and he carries on their work in alchemy, astronomy, and other pursuits (but not astrology, you superstitious cretins). I really enjoyed the secondary characters in this one, more than I normally do. There was no secondary romance, but it was a solid cast of supporting characters including John and Sarah Churchill (Winston's ancestors), the priest Liam (who was aggravating and endearing at the same time - he's basically a drunken sot, a coward, and fiercely loyal to Jackie), and the Jewish armorer Simon Martín, friend to the hero and loyal to Jackie in his own right. The villain and villainess were rotten to the core (the latter being Jackie's own mother), but they were lip-smackingly delicious to read. While there was rape, the author didn't blow off the effect it had on Jackie. She's laid low by it, feels dirty and ruined and is listless. It's not dwelt upon for pages and pages, but the reader is given a short vignette of how the next few weeks after the event pass. Since this isn't really a typical romance, it'll probably be easier to simply list the reasons why some might want to avoid it, because I suspect that it hits quite a few pet peeves out there: * the heroine is disguised as a boy for most of the book and manages to fool nearly everyone * the hero has those "funny feelings" about the lad and gets annoyed with both him and the heroine * the heroine gets raped, twice, by the bad guy * the hero and heroine don't have sex at all, and only kiss once (I think) * the only sex in this book has one or both of the bad guys doing it (and earlier, the heroine's father) * the heroine dresses as a girl to charm the hero (whom she hates) and he has no idea it's Jackie * there's an emphasis on adventure and the heroine's character rather than a binary romance * the supporting cast has lots of face time, although it's usually with either the hero or the heroine present So it wasn't what I expected, but I loved it. Not amazingly brilliant, but very very enjoyable. It took place during a period I haven't read much about (the "Glorious Revolution") and did it in an engaging way. 4.5 stars This book review has been provided by the No Book Left Behind Campaign! A Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous group initiative to review the un-reviewed!