TBR Day, more than a week late.

Like many of you, life is running away from me faster than I can catch it. TBR Day was on February 18th, and it flew right by. We went out of town that week and reading wasn't on the To Do List. (Well, it was, it just didn't make the "Got Done" part of it.) This week I managed to sit down and finish my book, but I'm only now getting around to the review.

This month's mini-challenge was to read a book that had been granted DIK (Desert Island Keeper) status from AAR, if you had one of those on the shelf. I happened to have a couple of them, but the one I chose to read was Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas. Seduce Me at Sunrise is the sequel to Mine Til Midnight, which I read back in December 2007. It is loosely tied to the author's wallflower series of which I still have one book left to read.

Ok, so what's it about- Winnifred (Win) Hathaway.. you know what? here, read this summary...

Kev Merripen has longed for the beautiful, well-bred Winnifred Hathaway ever
since her family rescued him from the brink of death when he was just a boy. But
this handsome Gypsy is a man of mysterious origins-and he fears that the
darkness of his past could crush delicate, luminous Win. So Kev refuses to
submit to temptation-and before long Win is torn from him by a devastating twist
of fate.Then, Win returns to England-only to find that Kev has hardened into a
man who will deny love at all costs. Meantime, an attractive, seductive suitor
has set his sights on Win. It-s now or never for Kev to make his move. But
first, he must confront a dangerous secret about his destiny-or risk losing the
only woman he has lived for-

On the surface, this has one of my favorite romance plots- friends who fall in love. Or who have been in love but deny it until BAM! If you take away all the side plots (Kev's secret past, for example) then that's the bare bones. They love each other. They both know it. They just have to get from knowing it to doing something about it. There's a little bit of drama, there's the second suitor, there's a little (obvious) mystery to be solved. It's all good. Both Win and Kev are believable in their issues. Kev is a great hero, and I didn't think she went too far with his particular hangups. Amelia and Cam from Meet Me at Midnight play big roles and I loved seeing them. I think I liked Cam more in this one than in his book, actually. I think she may have taken the secret history a step too far at the end, but I can forgive that.

Kleypas seems to have set up the book so that she can write about the remaining three siblings. While I'm not so drawn to the other sisters, I'd like to see how she gets Leo to fall in love. I suspect with the right woman he might turn out to be her finest hero. I really enjoy romance novel series like this. It makes each book seem a little more fleshed out when you have the information from the other books, but you could reach each alone without missing anything.

Lisa Kleypas can be found online here.

Seduce Me at Sunrise

Lisa Kleypas

St. Martin's Paperbacks

2008

384 pages

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