Too Dangerous to Desire by Cara Elliott (Lord of Midnight #3)
Historical Romance
November 20, 2012
Forever

Reviewed by May

Sophie closed her eyes for a fleeting instant. “I’m delighted that you found your knight in shining armor, Georgie. But not all of us are fated to be so lucky. If there are any reptiles that need slaying, I fear I shall have to sharpen my own sword.”

Sophie is the eldest sister, a spinster, and woman who found her true love once upon a time but turned his offer of elopement down to be responsible and stay with her family. She doesn’t have much, her father is not all there mentally, but she is going to have to come up with something drastic because she is now being blackmailed by a vile man and she has nothing more to give him.

Cameron is one of the mysterious and dreaded Lords of Midnight. Along with his two friends, he sticks to the shadows and prefers the night. Once Sophie’s childhood friend and true love, he ran away long ago to escape the sting of her rejection and the threats of his half-brother. Now he’s in London, and witnessing Sophie whisper with a very shady man. What is she up to?

Information is what he wants at first, but soon he finds he can’t help getting involved with the case, fixing her blackmail issue, and falling back in love with the only woman he ever really cared for.

I know that I read the other two books in this series, but quite honestly I have no real memory of them. Unfortunately, this novel was equally forgettable and a disappointment.

The one good thing I will say for this book, is that Sophie and Cameron have a definite chemistry and I enjoyed how their history kept colliding with the present. How her innocence and light contrasted with the darkness that surrounds Cameron now, and how the pair was so well suited. I loved their dialogue, and the author kept me intrigued as to what they’d speak of next:

“Without your breeches, your intimate parts might also suffer shrinkage,” countered Sophie.

Cameron let out a bark of laughter. “How do you know such shocking details about the male anatomy?”

“You snuck in a swim in the sea when you were twelve, and left me to hold your clothes.”

He had forgotten about that long-ago interlude until now. But god, they had shared many adventures over the years. “Good God, how extremely embarrassing.”

“Extremely.”

Great dialogue giving us humor as well as glimpses into their past aside, the real meat of this story was the conflict with the very bad men who are threatening Sophie. I’ll just say that the blackmail plot was strange. It all ties back together with the couple and gets wrapped up neatly, I just found it odd and uninteresting. Why blackmail a country miss who has no money so forcefully? The alleged information she has (that they want) under the circumstances is unlikely to exist or be something that could be found so why bother? I know the answer of course- I just didn’t think it was strong enough of a plot to carry a novel that is nearly 350 pages long.

And, because the couple walks on page #1 in love and wishing they could be together (even if they pretend otherwise outwardly), that was where the story was. I’m not at all a fan of stories where people are in love, separate, then find each other again and all feelings remain exactly the same. People change as they age, life and experience molds them. I found the reconnected lovers to be too easy of a fit with too little conflict. I believe the bottom line is, I didn’t see any reason why now, in this time and place, Cameron and Sophie are suddenly ready for each other or more importantly why they didn’t reconnect long ago.

Overall, this book wasn’t bad, it just really didn’t have enough stand-out material or a strong enough story to be a great read for me. The Lords of Midnight didn’t have any real bite to them, nothing that made me especially interested or excited in what would happen next and this was especially problematic. When I’m told I am getting a bold and dangerous man as my leading man – I expect quite a bit and this story didn’t deliver. It felt like a story I’ve read before, and the characters were for the most part flat, predictable, and all-around uninteresting.

Grade: C-

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