Book Review: Sinful Pleasures

This book came very highly recommended from Julia Quinn, one of my favorite romance writers. But personally, I don't know what all the fuss was about.

This book takes place in the middle ages, around the time period from the movie "Braveheart" only the old king has died and the son that everyone suspects is gay is now king. The hero and heroine were lovers at court five years earlier, until she publicly rejected him and broke his heart. Now the heroine needs to get married to protect her against a powerful, evil earl that wants to marry her. She and her friends decide the hero will be the one she'll marry. He was so heartbroken by her rejection years earlier that he joined the Brotherhood of the Templar Knights. But now the Templars are being rounded up by the French Inquisition and tortured, treated as heretics. So he is persuaded to agree to marry her because she uses her influence to get him out of the Inquisition.

I suppose the plot was decent for a romance novel, but this book definitely missed a spark. I didn't really get the sense that there was a deep and abiding love between the two of them, and her reason for rejecting him was completely lame. I kept expecting to hear something like she was forced to do so by an overbearing father, or did it to save his life or something. I was unsatisfied with the real reason.

Also, this book had no climax (I know it's a romance novel - no pun intended). It felt like the story built and then plateued for way too long, and then it just kind of fizzled out and got resolved without much effort on the authors part. But the writing was decent in its composition and whatnot.

Lindsey's Grade: C+