Forbidden

Rating:
Summary: Very Confusing!!!!
Review: In Begining, the story drags alot. It's very confusing since it's jumping from one plot to the other. It's just doesn't fall into place till the middle of the story. This is the first book I read about The Rouges and it's captured my interest... Serena is well portrayed and Francis is very well protrayed also.
I recommend this book and to better understand this book you must read about the other Rouges also.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic.
Review: One of the best books in the sreies of "Rogues". Francis is rather quiet. Is courting a lovely lady when he sees Serena walking in the road. She is running away from her 2 brothers who want to sell her again in marriage to a man just like her 1st. husband. If she didn't marry they would sell her to a brothel. Mathew Riverton was notorious. He used Serena who he married when she was 15 as a sex-slave. When Francis rescued her she gave him the only thing she could, her body. Well she had been trained to by her husband. Serena soon discovered she was pregnant after being told before she was barren.
A fantastic book.




Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2 stars. Did Francis ever tell Serena he loved her?
Review: One thing that bothered me - is at the end Serena says she loves Francis but as far as I can recall he never said the words to her.

I have read all the Rogue books to date and I really like them all! Even though - I really doubt in reality that Nicholas and Lucien would be faithful husbands. Lucien getting turned on by watching Francis and Serena fight - was a little much. I think the men wouldn't mind sharing their wives or their mistresses.

Okay after all of that though - I am completely addicted to the series and can't wait to read the rest.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous, sexy romance!
Review: Serena Riverton, desperate to escape another probably-horrid marriage arranged by her anything-but-loving brothers, seduces Lord Francis. She figures she can tolerate being his mistress - it won't be as bad as anything she endured with her sexually abusive husband. She gets what she wants but with a surprise - real pleasure and true love with the sensitive Francis who's as innocent as she is jaded. Great romance. Highly recommend it

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Chocolate
Review: This has to be one of my favourite books and I wish it would be reprinted, as it's so expensive to buy a used copy. One for the keeper shelf, Forbidden is the fourth book in the Company of Rogues series. My librarian actually blushed when I checked it out of the library, as the large print hardback edition had Black Satin Romance emblazoned along the top, along with a photo of a very sexy looking blonde in a black corset. With the title, "Forbidden", I think she thought I was checking out erotica, lol (I loved that racy cover :))

How to describe Forbidden? A Regency or a Regency Historical? In both categories it would be outstanding. I feel the tone and theme of this book fits in with the previous book in the series, Christmas Angel (another favourite), where two mature and decent adults find themselves in a marriage, not due to romantic love but other considerations. And then they have to get to know one another.

If you dislike the rake character, there are no rakes in either Forbidden or Christmas Angel. In fact, Francis, the hero, in Forbidden, is a virgin (and Beverley makes this very believable). He is a sensitive, caring and gentle character who fell in love honourably with the heroine in An Arranged Marriage, remaining her friend when she needed him and never giving in to the temptation to seduce her away from her husband. At the beginning of Forbidden he is contemplating marriage to a nice, gentle and suitable girl who has been left on the shelf due to her shy nature and bad leg (Anne really is a lovely character who is jilted yet again in The Dragon's Bride, until she find her own hero finally in Hazard).

Serena, the heroine, has much in common with the heroine of Christmas Angel. Both have been married previously, at too young an age, and have practical reasons for their second marriages of convenience. I personally prefer to read about more mature heroines with some life experience behind them. I found Serena to be as likeable as Francis.

Unlike some other reviewers here, I didn't find the plot involving Francis's mother and her lover slapstick at all. It is necessary as a deus ex machina to set up the meeting between Francis and Serena, and as a secondary romance I found it very charming in its own right while breaking again romance stereotypes.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Wonderful
Review: This is definately my favorite of the Company of Rogues Series. I was intrigued with Francis when I first visited the Rogues in Beverley's first installment, An arranged Marriage. I felt so bad for him at the end of the first novel, and I was relieved that he got his own story.
It's an wonderful read full of wit (that characterizes most of her other novels) and humor. We get to visit most of the other Rogues in this installment and get to hear more of Blanche's and Hal's story(their story is threaded through out the series).
I would recommend,however, to anyone who hasn't read any of this series to start with An Arranged Marriage and work your way thru the rest, because the entire series is excellent. You'll fall in love with most of the Rogues and constantly change your mind on which characters you like the best. Happy Reading!!

Rating:
Summary: Francis' story: another Rogue meets his match
Review: While I enjoyed this book, I don't agree with the previous reviewer that it is better than the previous Company of Rogues books. I didn't find it as breathtaking or compelling as either Nicholas's or Lucien's stories in the first two books.

Francis Middlethorpe is a sweet, gentle and caring man, who is half-way in love with Nicholas's wife Eleanor but knows he must marry to ensure the continuation of his title and line. He is on the point of becoming engaged to Anne Peckworth, a duke's daughter; then he meets Serena Riverton, widow of a man dubbed Randy Riverton by the ton and whose marriage - entered into when she was 15 - had been an appalling, abusive sexual servitude. Running away from her brothers' attempts to sell her into another distasteful marriage, she wonders whether life as Lord Middlethorpe's mistress might be more congenial - so she seduces him.

As a result, Francis - being an honourable man - feels that he has no choice but to marry her. But the lack of trust between them, added to Serena's own preconceptions about marriage and sex, mean that their relationship is uneasy. A man who was a virgin until his wife seduced him, and a woman who views 'bed-work' as something to be endured and in which she must not display any reluctance, have a lot of difficulties to overcome.

Fans of Lucien and Beth, and of Nicholas and Eleanor, will find their heroes making several appearances in these pages. Francis's wonderful aunt, Arabella, also takes a secondary role. And just who is Felicity, Miles's wild ward? And will she reappear in a later Company of Rogues novel?

The only aspect of this book I really didn't like was the way Beverley handled the secondary romance. In particular, the scenes in which this was being resolved seemed to me to be farcical in the extreme (relying on confusions such as those following from there being two Lady Middlethorpes, for example), though I also found Francis's mother's blackmail tale, in the second chapter, unconvincing. I'm sure this aspect of the book could have been handled better.

However, that aside, Beverley handles Serena's traumatic past with delicacy and care, and she and Francis make a lovely couple.