Title: The Secret to Your Surrender Author: Adele Clee
Read copy: eBook
Published: November 21, 2016
Publisher: Smashwords
ISBN: 0993529186
ISBN-13: 9780993529184
All he wanted was to safeguard his secret.
Having spent years living in the shadow of his brother’s scandalous reputation, Anthony Dempsey fought hard to regain the credibility of his family name. His unwavering sense of duty is renowned and admired. But then tragedy strikes. Threatened with ruination, he withdraws from society to hide his secret and protect all those close to him.
How ironic that he should finally meet a woman who captures more than his interest. Indeed, Sarah Roxbury is a dazzling beauty who ignites the flame of passion in his heart, awakens a craving deep in his core.
But how can he think of love? How can he commit to anyone when the truth is sure to bring nothing but devastation and despair?
All she wanted was his surrender.
Despite much praise for her beauty and alluring countenance, there was only one gentleman who'd captured Sarah Roxbury's heart. But Anthony Dempsey was an enigma. He was charming, intelligent, interested in more than her beguiling smile. Then as quick as the wind could blow out a candle, he appeared cold and indifferent.
What was he hiding? Why did he prove to be a constant disappointment? Desperate to uncover the reason behind his mysterious behaviour, Sarah discovers there is more at risk than a broken heart.
My rating:
Anthony Dempsey is a man at the end of his rope. Trying to keep a secret from his brother, trying to prevent the Harwood name from being associated with another scandal, and dealing with a blackmailer, all the while keeping Sarah Roxbury, the woman who makes his heart sing, at arm's length in order to protect her, is taxing.
But his brother is stubborn, his sister in law is determined and filled with pregnancy hormones, and Sarah Roxbury is too beautiful, too tempting, and too damn irresistible to keep away. Is it any wonder Anthony cannot keep his secret any longer?
Well, I jinxed it. If this were the first book in the series, I wouldn't read any further. Disappointing, to say the least.
With an insipid hero (I never would've thought he could be even remotely related to Lucas Dempsey) and his idiotic reasoning for not revealing the "secret" at least to his brother sooner, a vapid heroine (so far away from her sister's lively character), who kept spouting headache-inducing flowery prose whenever they were in close proximity to each other, a suspense (if one could call it that) plot as weak as a newborn, and a resolution to the "suspense" plot even weaker, I must say Ms Clee dropped the ball with his one.
If it wasn't for Mr Thorpe and Mrs Chambers, who even in their first brief interaction on the page had more chemistry and more spark than the two leads (I can't wait to read their story, A Simple Case of Seduction), this story would've been a disaster. Granted, I never really took to liking Anthony Dempsey very much (even in his brother's book I found him bland, ordinary, and unexciting), but I never would've imagined his story would be so utterly boring and dull.
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