Reckless - Anne Stuart

Adrian Alistair Rohan lost his faith, and now, a dedicated member of the depraved Heavenly Host, he loses himself in his only pleasure: the seduction and debauchery of beautiful women. Rich, charming and devastatingly skilled in the arts of love, he never fails in his conquests... until Charlotte Spenser. 

Charlotte is facing a desolate, passionless future, none of which matters to Adrian, who imagines her a toy until better prey arrives. But beneath her drab exterior, Charlotte is a woman as enchanting as she is brilliant and, lured into Adrian's world, soon she becomes the seducer, and he the seduced...

When I finished the first book in this series I was wondering if the next books would follow in the same vein or bring us something original. Well, after reading it I think this story has the same type of plot, we do have another bad boy hero, and even if we do have a spinster older heroine to match him I think it is still much of what we had in the previous book but a little less interesting.

Charlotte has been in love/in lust with Adrian for quite sometime. He is aware of it but has never been interested in her till now. When Charlotte travels with her cousin to a party of the Heavenly Host (just to watch mind you), she finds herself seduced by Adrian and they spend 2 days in bed. After which they go their separate ways. But Adrian can't stop thinking about Charlotte and when he thinks she might be pregnant he decides to marry her.

That's basically what happens and that's why I was less happy with it. I like the tension to develop before they hit the sheets and it is nice that they do get to know each other first so we can sense why they are attracted to one another. Here Charlotte was already pining for Adrian and what seems to get them together is how they enjoyed having sex. There's a suspense subplot that didn't add much to the story (and I guessed the villain almost immediately) and there's a brilliant secondary romance that I thought was a lot more interesting than the main one.

I'm still looking forward to continuing this series, especially because in the next book we will have a bad girl Rohan instead of a bad boy. She seems to find someone as bad as her brother and father though. Let's see how they do.

Grade: 3/5