The Printed Page

Yesterday Jennifer at The Literate Housewife Review started a new book meme called Tuesday’s Temptation. Here’s how Jennifer describes Tuesday’s Temptation: Despite how wonderful my current reads might be, I really enjoy being able to look over my shelves and drool over the as-of-yet unread goodies. I don’t know about you, but I could spend a half hour or more just touching the spines and, because I have to double park my books for lack of space, pull out the first row so I can rediscover what’s behind them. Me I can’t stare at full book shelves as I don’t have any. And Jennifer lives across the country from me so I can’t stare at her shelves either. I have a beautiful bookcase bought last year to house my review books and at the first of this year decided I needed a break so my review books are down to less than 6 in total. I also don’t keep books preferring to read on my Kindle or pass along any I do get to my local library or friends.  But temptation called my name today on a donation stop at my local library. The new titles fiction display played its siren call to me. Shameless by Karen Robards and Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell. If Haunt Me Still Looks familiar its because I featured it as part of my April wish list posts. And yes it followed me home.

In Regency England, a beautiful young woman finds her life thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a handsome scoundrel. Lady Elizabeth, the youngest and most headstrong of the three Banning sisters, has been engaged three times, and has most scandalously broken off all three engagements. Her fear of becoming any man’s property has kept her from marriage and earned her a reputation in the ton as a heartbreaking flirt.

Neil Severin is a wicked rogue, black of heart and black of reputation. A man of no morals, devoid of compassion, he is a government sanctioned assassin. And his newest target is a man Beth holds dear. When the flame-haired beauty thwarts his plan, Neil exacts his own brand of spicy revenge.

Beth despises him. Neil doesn’t care. But circumstances most unexpectedly throw them together, and with Beth’s life in danger, Neil finds himself in the unexpected role of hero, racing to save her before it’s too late.

What he never expects is the twist fate hands him: instead of his saving her, Beth winds up saving him. When the ruthless organization he works for turns its agents loose on him, only Beth stands between him and a death he thought he didn’t fear.

In a fight for their lives, Neil and Beth travel the British countryside, fleeing the ruthless killers out for Neil’s blood, the men after Beth, and their growing attraction to each other. Can Neil forgive himself for his past and accept Beth’s love? Can Beth overcome her fear and trust Neil? Will she have to choose between him and her family? And most important, can they both survive long enough to begin a new life together?

The third in the Banning Sisters trilogy that began with the New York Times bestsellers Scandalous and Irresistible, Shameless marks a dazzling return to historical fiction for Karen Robards.

As Kate Stanley begins directing rehearsals for Macbeth at the foot of Scotland’s Dunsinnan Hill, it doesn’t take long for the legendary curse on Shakespeare’s evil-ridden play to stir. Strange references emerge to the boy actor who first played Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s day and died in the role. A trench atop the hill is found filled with blood shortly after some of the actors go missing. And a mysterious tarot card leads Kate into the woods where she finds a local woman dead in circumstances that suggest not just ritual murder, but ancient pagan sacrifice.

With Kate marked as both suspect and future victim, she and Ben Pearl race to discover an early version of Macbeth, said to contain actual rituals of witchcraft and forbidden knowledge. However much Kate would like to dismiss such rituals as superstition, someone else appears willing to kill for them—and for the cursed manuscript said to be Shakespeare’s darkest secret.