MY LADY'S PLEASURE

Author: Olivia Quincy ISBN: 9780451230072 7/2010 HISTORICAL Publisher: NAL/SIGNET
Time Period: 1890s

Lady Georgiana Vernon, daughter of the Earl of Eastley, and Jeremy Staunton, youngest son of a viscount, have an unconventional relationship—at least for the upper crust in 1895. They meet publicly as friends, and privately as lovers. It’s an arrangement that allows Georgiana the sexual freedom she desires—and continues to indulge in—as a guest at Penfield, where the most sought-after names in the country gather for Lord Laughlin’s annual masquerade ball. Then Georgiana initiates a torrid affair with the sexy landscape architect working at Penfield. She sees it as nothing more than a harmless but pleasurable indulgence. But when the relationship is discovered she becomes the target of increasingly malicious threats. During the night of the masquerade ball, these intimidations will come to a dangerous head, as the men in Georgiana’s life reveal their own secret desires.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Lady Georgiana Vernon is an unconventional woman of her time. Toward the beginning of the story, she takes her friend Jeremy Staunton, the younger son of a viscount, to be her lover. Not that I’m surprised at all about what transpires in this novel; I had been warned before this review that this was, indeed, an erotic tale, and I got what I wanted out of this—delicious, gratuitous lovemaking. However, the one thing I didn’t get that I’d hoped for was a plot of some kind. Oh, yes, there was the beginning where the lady met up with Jeremy and they had a good time. But then, for half of the novel, he wasn't a part of the story in any way. Through the twists and turns and Georgiana taking another lover at a house party; the home’s owners, the male counterpart having an affair; the other occupants of the party having their own trysts; I didn’t see at all where the author was going to go with her story—not that I don’t like surprises, because I do.

It just so happened that I didn’t buy the ending at all. Throughout most of this story, Georgiana didn’t know what happened behind her back; that this other lover didn’t truly care for her and used women. Since I didn’t see the interaction I wanted between the hero and heroine, like I said, the ending didn’t fit at all. It seemed to be tacked on to give the readers a happy ending.

Read MY LADY'S PLEASURE if you don’t mind multiple back stories and raunchy goings-on. But don’t read this book if you’re looking for a satisfactory plot line where boy gets girl, boy loses girl, then gets girl back sort of plot. In the end, would I pick this book back up from the shelf on a dreary, rainy day? Yes, if I’m looking forward to getting in the mood with the hubby, but no if I want to read a great love story where I cry buckets of tears.

Angela Arno