Author: Jade Lee
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Publish Date: Sept 2010
Genre: Historical Romance
The daughter of an actress, Scher Martin feels she'll never fulfill her dreams of acquiring a good home and having a respectable family, so she agrees to be the mistress of Brandon Cates, Viscount Blackthorn.
But when Brandon's cousin proposes marriage, Scher finds herself torn between the propriety she craves and the love of a dark and troubled man.
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This is one of those random books I saw on the library shelf, liked the cover so I picked it up and gave it a try. I have never before read (or even heard of, for that mattter) this author previous to Wicked Surrender.
I have my favorite historical romance authors, and I wondered if this new-to-me voice would enter the ranks of Julie Garwood, Catherine Coulter, Julia Quinn... but Jade Lee didn't quite make the cut.
It's our typical problem with Victorian England of class issues. Society has very strict rules on who is appropriate to marry and who isn't. I actually quite like these story lines. I think highly of characters that are strong enough to love whomever they choose, regardless of what others may think. At first, I admired Scher's willingness to "flout the rules" and marry a gentlemen despite her status. And then she kept putting herself in situations where she would get ridiculed and snubbed. And again. And again. I wanted to throttle her and say "Stand up for yourself girl! You deserve better than these awful people!" I'm all for strength in character, but there is a point when it becomes ridiculous. And Jade Lee hit that point in this book. Scher was just too... too... "woe is me" for my tastes. Who keeps putting themselves in situations where they get beat down over and over again? It just wasn't real.
I did love Brandon though. I love the dark heroes with their tragic pasts and wounded souls. He was simply adorable. In fact, if he hadn't been written as well as he was, I probably would have stopped halfway through the book. But I did finish it out, and Wicked Surrender will never grace my bookshelves or be read again, but I had to start somewhere with this author.
I will give Ms. Lee another try, just in case her other books are better than this one. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't.. great. I have so little time, and I want to fill it with great books, not so-so ones!
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