Seducing an Angel

Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh. 2009. Random House. 416 pages.

"What I am going to do is find a man."

Seducing an Angel is the fourth in Mary Balogh's Huxtable Family series. The first three are First Comes Marriage, Then Comes Seduction, and At Last Comes Love. This fourth book focuses on the brother in the family, Stephen. He is the "angel" of the title, the man our heroine, Cassandra Belmont (Lady Paget), has determined to seduce.

It would be nearly impossible for a widow to have a worse reputation than Lady Paget. She's rumored--by the ton--to have killed her husband. With an axe. The fact of the matter, for those that care about facts, is that her husband died from a bullet to the heart. When Seducing An Angel opens, Lady Paget is newly returned to London. She's got little to lose--no money, no jewels, no estate, no reputation. So she decides that perhaps it's time to try a new vocation. She's out to catch a man to keep her. She is seeking a man willing to pay well for her services. Once she hears that Stephen Huxtable is oh-so-wealthy and oh-so-single, well, she's determined that he may just be the perfect man for her.

Stephen is a little shocked by just how bold Cassandra is. How blatantly she is pursuing him at the ball. Widow or not, she's behaving very shockingly. She wants him in her bed before the night is out.

But what she doesn't realize is that Stephen may be uncomfortable with how she wants this business arrangement to go...he wants her mind and body or not at all.

I liked this one. It's not my favorite of the four I've read. Cassandra isn't the easiest heroine to love. Both Seducing an Angel and At Last Comes Love deal with abusive husbands and the predicament of married women--the fact that men legally had complete power, complete control over their wives. They were their possessions to use and abuse as they saw fit.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews