Love With a Scandalous Lord

Rating:
Summary: Come Home. 3.5 Stars
Review: Lorraine Heath is probably one of the finest western writers in the romance field. However, here I felt she was out of her element. Heath's strong suit is her ability to weave her novel's location into a story. Her readers can feel the heat, the dust, the harshness, and yet experience the beauty of Texas. Sadly, in this book, her genius was absent. I never wandered through the English countryside nor did I explore the city streets and alleys of London.

Her character description of Rhys Rhodes, the Duke of Blackhurst, was such that he came across as a full-scale cowboy. With Heath's character breakdown, I could picture this man slowly seducing our little spitfire, Lydia, on the LONELY western plains, but in the hallowed halls of his English mansion, the seduction never took shape.

Alas, not every romance book has to be set in jolly old England -- after all, the English didn't invent love. Please, Lorraine, come home to Texas, and let your writing pen roam.

Lorraine Heath is an excellent author and I do love her books. Check out "Texas Destiny" or "A Rogue in Texas", these are fine novels and are set in country Heath.

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

Rating:
Summary: Scandal is not always what is seems
Review: Love with a Scandalous Lords is the story of a forgotten son who is wrongly accused of some horrible things earlier in life and when he comes home for help he is turned away. Then his older brother dies and he is suddenly going to be the next Duke and expected to come home.

But, when he comes home his past won't hide from him. Also his father is dying and he sends for his illegitimate brother and his family as this is really his father's favorite son.

Along with the family comes his brothers step daughter Lydia who wants nothing more than to be part of the enchanting London Season, she thinks she want s all the rules and etiquette. But does she really. When she falls in love with Rhys she falls hard and when he looks to turn her aside she is upset but determined.

As usual Lorraine Heath throws in a few twists and turns in the story to keep things rather interesting!

Rating:
Summary: Another Heath destined for the keeper shelf....
Review: Lydia Westland is living her dream, albeit at the expense of her step-grandfather's impending death. Lydia is in London, her stepfather's homeland, a far cry from her home in Fortune, Texas. She's rather overwhelmed by all of the pomp and circumstance, but is bound and determined to enter society and find a suitable, respectable husband. Lydia is immediately intrigued and attracted to her stepfather's half-brother, Rhys Rhodes. When Rhys agrees to teach Lydia all the rules of living among the ton, neither expects the lessons will affect their hearts, as well as their futures.

Rhys Rhodes does not consider himself husband material. Circumstances from the past, a guilty conscience, and the fact that he has very strong feelings for Lydia keep Rhys in constant turmoil. Ten years older and much more worldly than Lydia, he decides the best thing he can do is find her a suitable husband. When his father dies and Lydia's family returns home, Rhys sets out to do just that. After all, as the new Duke of Harrington, his title should carry weight in introducing her to society. Never having known love, Rhys is convinced that Lydia will be much happier with someone else than she could ever be with him.

I was at first put off by Rhys, who seemed more of a cad than hero with his constant lusting after Lydia, but as the story unfolded, I found him to be one of Ms. Heath's most tormented, tortured, and sympathetic heroes to date. Ms. Heath slowly peels away layer after layer, making for a slower paced book than what we are used to from her, but it works extremely well for this story. I found myself almost in tears in a number of places toward the middle and end. Lydia Westland, the stepdaughter of Grayson Rhodes, from A ROGUE IN TEXAS, has one foot in childhood, the other in adulthood. When it comes to fighting for her man, however, Lydia is all woman.

LOVE WITH A SCANDALOUS LORD is very sensual, filled with depth of emotion and characterization. I highly recommend this latest offering from Lorraine Heath as another of her powerful stories destined for the keeper shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Love with a Scandalous Lord...Hmmm
Review: Lydia Westland's stepfather's father (try to keep up, now) is dying and she has come to England with her family to be at his bedside. Just a farm girl from Texas, the fact that her stepfather is the illegitimate son of a Duke has inspired Lydia to dream of her own glittering fairy tale in the world of the ton.

Rhys Rhodes, the Marquess of Blackhurst, hasn't had an easy life. At all. Ever. After being abandoned by the brother he loved while in his teens (Lydia's stepfather), things went from bad to worse for Rhys who was basically disowned by his remaining family until the death of his older brother which left him the heir to the family's dukedom. "Forced" to do some things he wasn't proud of to survive the years while he was outcast from his family, Rhys is convinced no woman could ever love him. Then he meets his step-niece, Lydia, but can't possibly be with her (even though she definitely wants to be with him) because of some misguided notion about his past making him not good enough for a girl who wants a fairy tale.

The love story between Rhys and Lydia isn't bad, even if their nearly uncle/niece relationship is almost a turn-off. Most of the time that their romance is developing I enjoy it, even if I'm occasionally irritated by Rhys's attraction to Lydia's "innocence". Toward the end of the story, however, Rhys is so thoroughly on the martyr train I lose patience quickly. He makes some really dumb "self-sacrificing" decisions for unsupported reasons right after proving that he can act a little selfishly if he wants to. Lydia isn't bad; she's not a standout heroine, but not a pushover either. There's also an abundance of characters from past Heath novels in this book, so many that I almost feel like she's trying to see how many of them she can bring in without completely directing the story away from the leads--I've read the other books, but can't really say that I'm at all interested in how any of the characters are doing "now".

This is the second Lorraine Heath book I've read in a couple of weeks, and even though I like "Love With a Scandalous Lord" better than the last book I read ("An Invitation to Seduction"), I'm still not thrilled with it. I give it three stars because it falls a little more on the side of good than bad. Having just finished it a few hours ago it's already fading into an undistinguishable lump in the pile of so-so romance novels in my memory. In my last review I recommended Heath's "The Outlaw and The Lady" and "To Marry an Heiress" instead, and feel compelled to do the same again here.

Rating:
Summary: Martyrdom With a Scandalous Lord
Review: Lydia Westland's stepfather's father (try to keep up, now) is dying and she has come to England with her family to be at his bedside. Just a farm girl from Texas, the fact that her stepfather is the illegitimate son of a Duke has inspired Lydia to dream of her own glittering fairy tale in the world of the ton.

Rhys Rhodes, the Marquess of Blackhurst, hasn't had an easy life. At all. Ever. After being abandoned by the brother he loved while in his teens (Lydia's stepfather), things went from bad to worse for Rhys who was basically disowned by his remaining family until the death of his older brother which left him the heir to the family's dukedom. "Forced" to do some things he wasn't proud of to survive the years while he was outcast from his family, Rhys is convinced no woman could ever love him. Then he meets his step-niece, Lydia, but can't possibly be with her (even though she definitely wants to be with him) because of some misguided notion about his past making him not good enough for a girl who wants a fairy tale.

The love story between Rhys and Lydia isn't bad, even if their nearly uncle/niece relationship is almost a turn-off. Most of the time that their romance is developing I enjoy it, even if I'm occasionally irritated by Rhys's attraction to Lydia's "innocence". Toward the end of the story, however, Rhys is so thoroughly on the martyr train I lose patience quickly. He makes some really dumb "self-sacrificing" decisions for unsupported reasons right after proving that he can act a little selfishly if he wants to. Lydia isn't bad; she's not a standout heroine, but not a pushover either. There's also an abundance of characters from past Heath novels in this book, so many that I almost feel like she's trying to see how many of them she can bring in without completely directing the story away from the leads--I've read the other books, but can't really say that I'm at all interested in how any of the characters are doing "now".

This is the second Lorraine Heath book I've read in a couple of weeks, and even though I like "Love With a Scandalous Lord" better than the last book I read ("An Invitation to Seduction"), I'm still not thrilled with it. I give it three stars because it falls a little more on the side of good than bad. Having just finished it a few hours ago it's already fading into an undistinguishable lump in the pile of so-so romance novels in my memory. In my last review I recommended Heath's "The Outlaw and The Lady" and "To Marry an Heiress" instead, and feel compelled to do the same again here.

Rating:
Summary: Love with a Scandalous Lord...Hmmm
Review: Many of the reviewers for Lorraine Heath's "Love With a Scandalous Lord" believe she should go back to writing about Texas. I am a fan of Lorraine Heath's and this story is the first story I've read from her where the setting was in England. I'd say, it was an okay story. I enjoy reading stories in various settings. But I prefer her other books to this. I just found some of the characters really annoying and can't believe in their reasons and rationale for the way they act. For example, Rhys the hero in the story just didn't click with me. Okay, I know how most romance stories go. The hero's some tortured soul with a bad boy streak with the nobody-loves-me outlook and the heroine is the nurturing oh-so-understanding type, the martyr. Rhys was just so into his "I-don't-deserve-anything-I'm-a-horrible-person" mode most of the story, that it got a bit tedious. Once it was revealed why he was feeling the way he did, I felt like saying, "Geez, for crying out loud!" If he felt that awful why did he have to live up to his "self-made" reputation? As for the heroine, Lydia, her child-like manner of extreme innocence just left me rolling my eyes in dismay. How could she be so naive? She acted as if she was locked up in a convent before she came to England. I mean she admitted in the story that there were boys back home that she associated with, i.e. kisses, courting, etc. etc. So how could she be "that" naive with men and "what goes on between a man in a woman"? And her dream to be a Lady and mesh in England's high society was over taxing. "A dreamer" she was dubbed. She was bordering on "stupidity". I understand how she wanted to see how the other half lived, but puhleeze! She was practically an ambitious social climbing, wanna-be. As for Rhys' mother. She was a cruel woman. Imagine her telling him she wished to God that it was him that drowned instead of his older brother? Then at the end she explains why she had treated him cruelly for years, a very weak and stupid reason at that. But this seemed to satisfy our hero. All in all, the story was okay. I enjoy Lorraine Heath's books, but this one has left me in limbo as to whether or not I liked the story. Maybe if there were some humor to the story it would have been more of an enjoyable read. But this won't prevent me from reading more books by Ms. Heath.

Rating:
Summary: Great romance!
Review: This time the reformed hooker is a guy and a good woman helps him regain respectability - altho he's a nobleman and she's an American! Funny, touching, and SEXY. read and have fun i did

Rating:
Summary: If I could I would give it 6 stars.
Review: Wow! What a fantastic love story! I read this book in one day, I literally could not put it down.
Rhys is one of the most compelling characters I have encountered. He is handsome, passionate, sensual and strong, and at the same time vulnerable, tormented, lonely and in great need of love. What woman can resist a combination like that in a man? His desire to protect Lydia even at the cost of his own happiness made my heart melt, while Lydia's confidence in their love and its capacity to overcome any difficulty and forgive anything made me feel proud of her. She is a very believable heroine, with a very tender soul and a great capacity to love and understand. I could sympathize with her because for the most part she reacted like I would have done in her circumstances.
I have enjoyed this book throughly, but my favorite scenes are when they are in the garden and he realizes that she is barefoot and her feet are cold and he rubs them so tenderly, and the scene when he plays the piano with such sensuality. I could almost "hear" the music in my head! Oh, and of course, at the ball, when instead of turning her back on him like the rest of the world was doing, she goes to him and takes his hand regardless of the consequences.
A completely delightful love story and a well written book, were the author touches deep and delicate themes with great taste and masterful ability.