Lawson’s review of With Seduction in Mind (Girl-Bachelors, Book 4) by Laura Lee Guhrke
Historical Romance published by Avon 25 Aug 09
Original Review posted 8 Dec 09
This book has been sitting on my coffee table for probably far too long to remind me that I should write up a review. The problem is that I really was not wanting to write this review. While it’s a story that continues the adventures of another of the Girl-Bachelors of Little Russel Street, the story fell into a different tone than a romance.
The book opens with Daisy Merrick in a situation she’s been in before: unemployment. While she doesn’t want to blame her former employer, it is his fault. He tried to compromise her in a storage closet and she gave him the set-down he deserved, which means he fired her. Daisy now has to go tell her sister, who owns the employment agency that got her the job, that she’s been fired. Again.
What Daisy really wants to do is write, and she decides to submit her manuscript to Marlowe Publishing, owned by her good friend Emma’s husband (and hero of And Then He Kissed Her). While her manuscript is not rejected, she is asked to make severe edits to make it publishable and she is offered another job in the meantime. Daisy is asked to write a review of the new play written by Sebastian Grant, Earl of Avermore.
Sebastian is angry that someone would write a scathing review of his play in one of his publisher’s newspapers. He storms into Marlowe’s office and demands a retraction, only to be asked about a promised manuscript that is over three years late. Sebastian doesn’t like the plan that Marlowe offers either. Produce a manuscript and mentor new author Daisy. Sebastian sends in an old manuscript, which Daisy edits, then follows him to his country house to help him through the process of rewriting the old story and getting writing advice from the greatest writer of her generation.
Of course sparks ensue. The hardest thing to get around in the story is Daisy’s personality. Ever the optimist and rather cheerfully determined, she can’t accept the many noes that come her way from Sebastian. She’s failed at enough jobs, this one she’s going to make work. No matter what. Which gets overly grating because she’s twenty eight and sees the world with rose-colored glasses. With her history with her father, money, and losing jobs due to her outspokenness, one would think she’d have a bit more of a realistic view of life.
Sebastian is not a bad hero, but he does beat up on himself. He lets his father’s disdain for his writing career drive him to write, to succumb to something that is his deep, dark secret and finds he can’t write. Writer’s block is more of a problem for him than he wants to admit, but it’s more that he’s disappointed in himself that he has a block than anything else.
Together Sebastian and Daisy could work, but their relationship and how it’s described came across more as a commentary on the different processes writers have, rather than giving two characters chemistry. When it comes to the point where they should talk to each other about something other than writing, Daisy keeps the blinders on and doesn’t see real life.
While it could have been a sweet story about two people overcoming their past to make a future together and two writers understanding the world around them, it was something else. I don’t know if the point was to tell a story about how hard it is to be a writer, but that’s what came across more than the love story of two Edwardian writers.
Grade: C-
Summary:
A thoroughly modern woman…
Daisy Merrick has to earn her living, but she keeps getting the sack. When her rash tongue costs her yet another job, the feisty, outspoken girl-bachelor is undaunted, and she comes up with a plan that could give her a future beyond her wildest dreams. There’s only one problem. Her success depends on a man, the most infuriating, impossible, immovable man she’s ever met.
A most notorious man…
Sebastian Grant, Earl of Avermore, is England’s most famous author, but when writer’s block steals his creativity, Sebastian becomes more well-known for his notorious reputation than his work. When Daisy arrives on his doorstep, hired by his publisher to help him write his next book, Sebastian has no intention of cooperating. The provoking, fire-haired beauty stirs his senses beyond belief, and when collaboration forces them together at his country home, Sebastian knows he has only one way out. Seduction.
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
