The fortieth book I read in 2014 was Temptation and Surrender by Stephanie Laurens. I finished this book on 5/21/14. This is the 15th book in the Cynster family series by this author. Previous books in the series were discussed in earlier blog posts this year, specifically 2014 – Book #23, 2014 – Book #21, 2014 – Book #13, 2014 – Book #12, 2014 – Book #10, 2014 – Book #6, and 2014 – Book #4 (I know that’s quite a few!). I rated this book 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This book tells that story of Jonas Tallent and Emily Colyton. Jonas is the brother of Phyllida, who married Lucifer (Alasdair) Cynster in the 6th book in the series, All About Love. As I’ve said in previous posts about this series, I like meeting the characters in previous books and then seeing them and learning about their characters further when they feature in their own books.
Emily is willing to do whatever is necessary to get herself and her siblings out of their horrible Uncle’s house, even if that means taking a position as an innkeeper to earn money to support her family. So they take up residence in the town of Colyton, hoping to find a treasure that their ancestors supposedly left behind for future generations while Emily also manages the inn. Jonas Tallent’s father owns the inn that Emily now manages, giving him a perfectly good excuse to talk to her whenever he wishes. Their relationship develops and Jonas realizes that he wants to protect Emily and take care of her for the rest of her life, which is nice.
I thought this book was ok. I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I have in previous books by this author but the plot was interesting enough and the main characters seemed like decent people. The hero was a little too pushy for my taste but he was a nice enough guy. I felt like the ending was a bit of a stretch, the villain’s identity I saw coming in a sense but the explanation behind it was weak and not well developed through the rest of the story I thought. Overall this wasn’t my favorite book by this author but was a decent addition to the series.
Link to author website: http://www.stephanielaurens.com/
Link to first blog post in 2014 about Cynster family series (includes family tree picture): https://rebeccabookreview.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/2014-book-4/
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