All About Love [Mass Market Paperback]

There is a murder plot: the old friend whom Rupert - Lucifer, as weï¿re supposed to call him - has come to visit has just been killed. And Lucifer knows that Phyllida knows something about the murder, just as he later discovers that her life is in danger - which gives him a very good reason to insist on protecting her. And, being a Cynster, he does a lot more than just protect her. Which begins to sound somewhat familiar...

Hereï¿s the formula for any Cynster book: Alpha-male hero, dead set against marriage, does his best to escape the plotters among the rest of his family. And then, when he least expects it, he runs into an unusual woman, very different from the run-of-the-mill female in that sheï¿s independent and confident, and immediately he falls in love and wants to marry her. Said female, on the other hand, does not want to marry him - for various, usually not very convincing reasons. Cynster male then exerts multiple powers of persuasion, some not exactly fair, but the one thing he refuses to do is to *tell* her exactly why he wants to marry her. So if sheï¿s holding out for a declaration of love, sheï¿s unlikely to get one, and this is what carries the story, which could really have been over within 150 pages, on to close to 400 pages.

Oh, and thereï¿s always some sort of mystery/murder/crime plot, which generally gets far too much time and attention devoted to it, and which is usually pretty much paper-thin.

But clearly the formula works, since Laurens seems to be selling millions of the books in this series. This oneï¿s okay, although the murder plot dominates rather too much and at least some of the links were far too obvious from the beginning. If Iï¿d read it as a stand-alone novel, since I did quite like Phyllida and Lucifer Iï¿d probably have given it a three or four; however, it really feels as if Iï¿m just reading the same book over and over again.

Chillingworthï¿s up next in the series; with any luck, as heï¿s not actually a Cynster, Laurens might not follow the formula for once.

Well it's Alasdair's turn. He's known to most as Lucifer and he's the last of the original Bar Cynster. He decides to leave London and the matchmakers to visit an old friend. When he arrives in Devon he finds his old friend dead and wakes with a aching head. How he gets that aching head is just as much a mystery as who killed his friend. He also finds his match, Phyllida. She is a strong, smart,savy business woman who like Lucifer wants to find the killer.

Phyllida, has many suitors who have tried to get her to the alter but none have the stunning effect that Lucifer does. He makes resisting him the hardest thing she's ever done. She's not going to make it easy for him but when she does surrender to his love and passion, she finds all she will ever need.

Oh and our old friend Chillingworth makes an apperance and gets more involved with the Cynsters than he ever wanted to.

I have enjoyed this series so much and I eagerly look forward to reading about the next generation of Cynsters.