A Well Pleasured Lady (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my favorite type of Dodd book. Full of humor, wit, intrigue and sexual tension that vibrates with the reading of each page. She proves herself once again a masterful storyteller. If I had to find something critical to say, it would be that Sebastian probably wasn't my favorite hero she's written, but all the other characters make up for it. The elderly Lady Valery was definitely the best supporting character here. Her own style of "investigating" the Fairchilds for her diary provided some of the funniest moments. As for the controversy surrounding their first time together, I don't feel this was rape. She was fiercely independent, and unwilling to give in to her passion for Sebastian. And I agree with a previous reviewer, she wouldn't have asked him to continue or had an orgasm if rape was involved.

This is the first of a two book series. Ian Fairchild's story, "A Well Favored Gentleman", provides the sequel and I highly recommend it as well. Both books definitely go on my keeper shelf!

Mary Fairchild, the heroine, barely stands up for herself against her hero, Sebastian. This is unusual for Dodd's heroines. After being forced from her home, after she murders a nobleman when she's a teenager, Mary works as a housekeeper in Scotland. Sebastian, the godson of her employer, wants to use Mary to inflitrate her family to obtain a stolen diary of his godmother's. To do this, they pretend to be brothed. However, from the time they arrive at the Fairchild Manor, the two never pretend to be betrothed. They act like it in reality. Since the whole premise of them infiltrating the Fairchild Manor was pretense, I would imagine that storyline being kept a little longer than one chapter.

The love scenes between the hero and heroine are forced. Sebastian first forces Mary to kiss him, and ultimately forces her into intercourse on a wall in a jealous moment. This is not a romance, in my opinion, and GREATLY retracts from the novel. Once Mary said "No" and "Don't" several time, Dodd should have called her hero off, and redeemed him in the eyes of the reader. Instead, Sebastian once again forces his heroine into marriage, so that he can ultimately control her. Not a great hero, in my eyes.

Never in this book do I get the feeling that the heroine is truly in love with the hero. I believed that the hero was obsessed with the heroine, but is that love? Thw whole point of reading books like this is to escape into a world of two people falling in love. It is hard to do that in this novel, when the two people do not really show signs of even liking each other.

I would discourage anyone from reading A WELL PLEASURED LADY. If you are reading Dodd for the first time, you might get turned off of her better material, such as the Governess Series. I will not be keeping this novel in my collection.