Review: Nice guys really do finish last.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2011
5-star HR writing.  1-star characters.  Except for Charles.  He's the marquess that heroine Madeline's stepmother wants her to marry to save Whitethorn,their estate, from financial ruin. I wanted to give him an Oprah makeover, take him away from the awful people at Whitethorn and find him a True Love worthy of him.  Dang, but he was good, kind and noble, albeit not a hunk or dashingly rakish.  (It seems his kisses were a bit too dry also.)Well, I guess Madeline was OK too.  At least she's the second best of the characters here, but she certainly didn't deserve Charles.  However, that's irrelevant.  We know who the hero is:  Lucien, Lord Esher.  (It's his "Fall", after all.)  I have nothing good to say about him except that he's a hunk and dashingly rakish.  He's apparently tortured because his mother encouraged his prodigious musical abilities but after her death his daddy wasn't nice to him about his unmanly interests.Then we have Juliette, Madeline's stepmother, who lends a whole new twist to the Wicked Stepmother.  She's actually quite loving to her stepdaughter but wickedly amoral as to sexual liaisons for herself.  Just in general, I found most everyone here (except for Charles, my crush) to be amoral and hedonistic.  Well, I must except Madeline too.  She is merely very young and drawn to the exciting and beautiful.  (She's also turned on by exceptional musical ability.)If I were to rate this only on my reaction to the characters, this would be a 1-star book.  However, the writing is actually very good and the romance between the H and h is developed well. And this is a romance, not a morality tale.