This is one of the early Chase regencies. It's not as good as her later ones but it's still better than a lot of the other early ones I read. I like the heroine who is very independent and smart. The hero becomes tolerable as the story goes on and the other characters are kind of fun. ( )

This is an older Chase. A chaste Chase, you might say. But it's full of her delightful repartee and compelling characters. Thoroughly enjoyable. ( )

I really enjoyed this, although occasionally it did lapse into the kind of melodramatic prose that made me so snarky the first time I read Lord of Scoundrels. If the mechanics of the plot were a bit creakily artificial, the characters made up for it by their intensity and capacity for change and self-reflection. ( )

Oh dear. Romances don't often get this good. But when they do, they are likely to be written by Loretta Chase.

What Loretta Chase does here is a twofold marvel:

1. She manages to write a "wager" novel that doesn't make the hero totally despicable. Have you ever noticed the hideous contortions a less remarkable romance writer will subject her novel to, in an effort of reconcile hero's lovable, true-gold character with his making a wager that he can seduce a virtuous and innocent woman? It can be like a visit to the circus.

Chase does it brilliantly. Brilliantly! How? Well, first of all, the hero - Julian - has determined to seduce the lady anyhow. He enters into the wager thinking that it is essentially irrelevant - after all, since he's already determined, why not? He is ultimately manipulated by it, but in wholly unexpected ways.

Second of all, he isn't wagering money - he is betting with his young, impressionable cousin's mistress in an attempt to release him from her clutches.

This allows Julian to be dark, dastardly, and dashing without ever holding Lilith so cheap as to be worth mere coins, or leaving him desperate and needy. He fancies himself in control (in fact, he is not).

2. Chase managed to write a "paragon" character who is actually a paragon. Lilith isn't supercilious, snappish, or moralizing, which is what paragons are usually, and sadly, suggested to be. No. She is, first and foremost, somebody who takes responsibility for her own actions; she is also generous and dignified, mature and intelligent. She doesn't reproach Julian for his advances because she is more interested in examining, and regulating, her own behavior than she is with anybody else's. Now *that* is what I call a paragon.

Lilith grew on me over the course of the novel, as did Julian - the pair of them with their sparkling dialogue and excellent chemistry. The side-romance involving Lilith's niece and Julian's nephew was fantastic, witty and sweet and meshed oh so elegantly with the main plot.

The story itself is so exquisitely worked out, all of the characters round, none of the words wasted, the romance develops so slowly and realistically...Lilith and Julian really do seem like a perfectly matched pair by the end of it, an excellent couple. ( )