Lord of Pleasure
Delilah Marvelle
Book #2 – School of Gallantry Series
ISBN-10: 1420104497
ISBN-13: 978-1420104493
Zebra, August 2009, 352 pp
Regency
$4.99 (US) $5.99 (CDN)
Reviewed by Mary
February 2009
Lady Charlotte Chartwell is a self respecting widow – she really is. Right at this moment while trolling up and down the street you could not prove it to anyone including Charlotte. At that moment she was trying to find a man, any man who would step up and take care of her and help save her from total despair and ruin. After her husband, the late Lord Chartwell, was murdered by one of his many lovers, she finds herself with penniless with mounting bills, and not able to find a respectable position through employement, she has found herself in search of a man, any man that could help her. Charlotte is sure she knows how it came to this – a horrid late husband, out of control men and a lack of money and Charlotte knew that what she was trying to do was wrong it was all she had left – to sell her body to any man willing to pay. Once she takes her first glimpse at Alexander she is convinced he is the man for the job.
Lord Alexander William Baxendale, the third Earl of Hawksford while finding himself lured by her seductive voice and beautiful face knows what Charlotte is proposing is unacceptable. While he wants her desperately from the moment of their first touch he knows that he cannot have her and will not destroy what little respectability he has left with the ton. For too many years he let himself run wild and had gained a reputation as the Lord of Pleasure. At the time when he ran wild he prided himself on his ability to give as much pleasure as he gave but those days were over and respectability was the time he lived in.
But Alexander could not deny his desire for Charlotte and that desire leads him to The School of Gallantry where a feisty French woman with a dream teaches proper gentlemen the art of seduction and how to refine their sexuality in order to pleasure a woman on every level.
Lord of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle (on sale August 2009) is another well-written and like her first novel in her series, The Mistress of Pleasure it contains a well thought out plot, with fully developed and interesting characters with a powerful and passionate love between the two main characters. It was a pure joy to read and I didn’t want to put it down or for it to end. I anxiously look forward to more novels in this series by this upcoming and talented author.