Sunday, March 31, 2013

Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3) by Elizabeth Hoyt


Widowed Silence Hollingbrook is impoverished, lovely, and kind—and nine months ago she made a horrible mistake. She went to a river pirate for help in saving her husband and in the process made a bargain that cost her her marriage. That night wounded her so terribly that she hides in the foundling home she helps run with her brother. Except now that same river pirate is back . . . and he's asking for her help.


"Charming" Mickey O'Connor is the most ruthless river pirate in London. Devastatingly handsome and fearsomely intelligent, he clawed his way up through London's criminal underworld. Mickey has no use for tender emotions like compassion and love, and he sees people as pawns to be manipulated. And yet he's never been able to forget the naive captain's wife who came to him for help—and spent one memorable night in his bed . . . talking. 



When his bastard baby girl was dumped in his lap—her mother having died—Mickey couldn't resist the Machiavellian urge to leave the baby on Silence's doorstep. The baby would be hidden from his enemies and he'd also bind Silence to him by her love for his daughter.



I adore pirate stories and Mickey is a conniving tramp who I soon came to love.  When Silence's husband is about to go to gaol, she beseeches the River Pirate for his help.  He wants her to spend the night to consider it, but she's a married woman and her reputation and her heart wouldn't even think of it.  But Mickey gets his delights where he can and promptly makes sure Silence's hair and gown are messed up when he sends her home to her husband.

He and her family believe Silence to have slept with Mickey and her reputation is in shreds.  So, she spends her time at a children's orphanage.  Soon after, she adopts an infant that was left on the doorstep.  She doesn't know that the girl is Mickey's daughter.  So when an enemy of Mickey's finds out that the infant is Mickey's daughter and wants to seek revenge, Mickey doesn't wait any time kidnapping her from the orphanage and taking refuge in his own castle.  

He figures Silence will soon track and follow him there, and she does.  Maybe now he can finally get the woman out of his mind, but nothing is ever that easy.  Mickey may have finally met his match.

A delicious read filled with engaging and complex characters, superb writing, entertaining dialogue and smoking hot desires, Scandalous Desires is a must read for any historical romance fan.  A fun romp!



*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


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The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.

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