Rating: 
Summary: engaging Regency romance
Review: The deceased vicar's daughter Emma Fitzgerald detests Lord John Clayton who neglected his responsibilities for a year and has hosted a week of debauchery. Besides changing the manor house into a den of iniquity Emma feels John went to far when he evicts several villagers in arrears on their payments to him. She rips him up and down in front of his older half-brother Ian.Emma shocks John when she offers her body in payment to pay the debts. He accepts her offer, but she knows by his body language that he does not intend to make her lose her virginity. However, the next day to his horror she shows up. John swears to himself and his amused sibling that no country vicar's daughter will trump him. Instead John soon falls in love with Emma and she reciprocates, but he is London hedonist and she is country nurturing. This is an engaging Regency romance due to the antics of the lead female character; she understands the hierarchy of needs of the locals, herself, and her beloved John. Emma knows that it is vital for people to eat, have shelter feel good about their self worth and to love and be loved. Unlike many people she is willing to do something about achieving all of this for others, for John and for herself. Ian knows John has met his match in the fiery Emma and amusingly observes the antics sort of like George Burns with his close circuit TV set watching the goings-on. Cheryl Holt provides a delectable story that will please sub-genre readers. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Contradictions: good writing, no plot, cardboard characters.
Review: The plot of this book is: oral sex. That's it. Hope that's not too blunt for you. But that really is about all that's going on. If that's what you want in a "romance" then this is the book for you, because it is much better written than many such books are. The author can write good descriptions, and has a good writing style, and there are very few of the grammar and word-misusage errors that plague so many mass market paperbacks these days. But despite her gift for description, the characters are either all-good, all-evil, or unbelievable. Examples: our heroine is intelligent, beautiful, knows how to deliver babies and keep estate books, eats too little so that her adorable little sister and senile aging mother can have enough to eat; her only vices are being willing to steal food to feed the starving, and her rather inexplicable lust. The would-be fiancee is a very nice girl, well-behaved, intelligent, well-trained, well-spoken, pretty, and quite nice - not a single flaw except her inability to understand that the hero will never marry her. The vicar is all-evil, not only stupid and venal and weak, but a sadist and pederast to boot. And the mistress is likewise all-bad: always greedy, always willing to cheat and lie. And both our hero and his brother are rather unbelievable - well described, handsome, and nice people, but no particular reasons given why they should be nice. The hero is transformed from debauched libertine to sober, responsible, property owner, solely by the power of the heroine's love, or at least unstinting lust. The brother is a bastard - literally - who has been stealing from the estate, but it turns out there's a perfectly good justification for it; he flip-flops from loving his brother to hating him, without ever wanting the actual estate which he, being the elder, would inherit if he were legitimate. There isn't enough motivation given for either the hero or the brother's actions. In sum: way better writing and better dialogue than most books that are mainly sex, but way less character and plot than most that are about romance.
Rating:
Summary: tale of two heroines
Review: This is my first book by Holt - and probably the last. The book started out so promising with a strong heroine. Emma was a hoot the way she stood her ground and overwhelmed John and Ian. The dialog was sharp and humorous. However...something happened...maybe she was replaced by a twin. Her character turned into a weakling with a muddled mind. The author made her so sharp and intelligent in the first half and a sex-weakened puddle in the latter part of the book. Just a finger (if you read the book you know what I mean) and she's mush. Ugh. Please, Ms. Holt, be consistant with your heroines and keep them strong and sharp.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete revulsion
Review: This was my first book by Miss Holt and it will be my last. I threw it into the trash can at page 42. For only the second time since I began purchasing books here (at least once a month for several years now), I feel that I absolutely wasted my money. Read Stephanie Laurens or Julia Quinn or Gaelen Foley instead. This was a nauseating misuse of paper and ink. I gave it one star only because there is no provision made to give it zero.
Rating:
Summary: Complete revulsion
Review: This was my first book by Miss Holt and it will be my last. I threw it into the trash can at page 42. For only the second time since I began purchasing books here (at least once a month for several years now), I feel that I absolutely wasted my money. Read Stephanie Laurens or Julia Quinn or Gaelen Foley instead. This was a nauseating misuse of paper and ink. I gave it one star only because there is no provision made to give it zero.
Rating: 
Summary: Sizzling Sensual Romance
Review: While Ms. Holt is rapidly achieving fame in the romance genre, it is clear that her sensual romances are not just an abundance of love scenes with a little plot added. In her latest, she very credibly integrates romantic interludes between an unhappy viscount and a deceased vicar's daughter with the caring nature that also binds the two in friendship. Though Emma Fitzgerald decides to ask John Clayton, Viscount Wakefield, to rescind his eviction notices, she never thought she would agree to sexual interludes with him in exchange for his rescission powers and his visits to the tenants. But agree she does, and the two soon learn that there is more to their relationship than the sensual promises of the bedroom. And while Emma is a thoroughly refreshing heroine in a subgenre where most young virginal females are submissive, she is no simpering miss, as she barely earns her keep for her invalid mother and young sister caring for neighbors and delivering babies in the village. With sensual love scenes between John and Emma amidst their verbal sparring, the plot continues at a fast pace, as John must determine the nature of their relationship before he returns to his mistress in London. Though the new local vicar's sensual proclivity for young girls seems a little over the top, the ever evolving romance between the two lovers is as entertaining as it is steamy.
Rating:
Summary: Sizzling Sensual Romance
Review: While Ms. Holt is rapidly achieving fame in the romance genre, it is clear that her sensual romances are not just an abundance of love scenes with a little plot added. In her latest, she very credibly integrates romantic interludes between an unhappy viscount and a deceased vicar's daughter with the caring nature that also binds the two in friendship. Though Emma Fitzgerald decides to ask John Clayton, Viscount Wakefield, to rescind his eviction notices, she never thought she would agree to sexual interludes with him in exchange for his rescission powers and his visits to the tenants. But agree she does, and the two soon learn that there is more to their relationship than the sensual promises of the bedroom. And while Emma is a thoroughly refreshing heroine in a subgenre where most young virginal females are submissive, she is no simpering miss, as she barely earns her keep for her invalid mother and young sister caring for neighbors and delivering babies in the village. With sensual love scenes between John and Emma amidst their verbal sparring, the plot continues at a fast pace, as John must determine the nature of their relationship before he returns to his mistress in London. Though the new local vicar's sensual proclivity for young girls seems a little over the top, the ever evolving romance between the two lovers is as entertaining as it is steamy.
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