Monday, July 2, 2007

The Rules of Seduction - Madeline Hunter


It’s been a while since I read a Madeline Hunter book and I was really curious about this new séries. I’m happy to say that I enjoyed it very much!

His rules will teach her the most sensual seductions and pleasures.

Her rules will bring him to his knees.

He enters her home without warning or invitation—a stranger of shadowy motives and commanding charisma. Within hours, Alexia Welbourne is penniless, without any hope of marriage. Until Hayden Rothwell takes her innocence in one impulsive act of passion. Society’s rules of seduction force Alexia to marry the very man who has ruined her family. What Alexia doesn't know is that her masterful, sensual new husband is driven by a secret purpose and bears a dark debt of honor. He will risk anything, give everything, to repay it. Except, he discovers, the woman who starts playing by her own rules.


The book is about Hayden and Alexia. She has been left destitute and after her cousin is forced by Hayden to give up his position on the bank he owns she is forced to accept Hayden’s proposal of working for his aunt. They are very attracted to each other but Alexia believes Hayden to be an heartless man who drove her cousins to ruin on a whim.

What I did like the most were the characters. Both the hero and the heroine are real people. Sometimes nice, other times exasperating but always interesting. We actually care about them and about how they deal with their differences. Also the whole financial context based in the history of the period was really well done as the backdrop to the story.

What I liked less was that the whole story is based on the fact that Hayden keeps a secret from Alexia that makes her think he is a less than honourable person when the truth is very much the opposite. Even after they are married he never tells her the truth. I really liked that he never forces her to accept his own view of things, he respects her and admires her as a person and in the end he even lets her choose between staying with him or not. Regarding the bad guys I think they got off lightly and Hayden once again had to clean up their mess. It didn’t seem very fair! As usual I'm very looking forward to the next book in the series.

Grade: B+

5 comments:

  1. Ordinarily, I'd have been annoyed by Hayden not telling Alexia the truth and allowing her to think badly of him. But I really thought it worked well here, maybe because he actually got angry and felt resentful at not being able to tell her. It prevented him from coming off as a martyr.

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  2. That's certainly true, I think they come off as real people almost with all those mixed emotions inside.

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  3. I really loved this one when I read it!

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  4. I'm ashamed of saying that even if I read it and liked it at the time, I don't remember much about this book...

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  5. Well that just means you'll have to reread it :-)

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