The Perfect Lover (Cynster series) by Stephanie Laurens Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Perfect Lover (Cynster series)
Book Review: Have fun plodding through....
Summary: 1 Stars
This was a very boring read with too much internal dialogue and introspection for what the situation was.
He wanted a wife, and she wanted to have babies and also learn about sex. And they were at a house party. Ho hum.
I did not think the sex scenes steamy in any way.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Book Review: Hope it is not the end of the Cynster dynasty
Summary: 5 Stars
I thoroughly enjoy everthing Stephanie Laurens writes. I like her humour, her characters and her details. I was stumped by the mystery, and happy with the endingBook Review: House party gone wrong.
Summary: 2 Stars
In this historical romance starring Cynster male #10 and his very own reluctant bride-to-be, a should've been delightful house party is the setting for the "love" match between Simon Cynster and Portia Ashford. For those of you following the Cynsters (in order), when we met Simon in Book One - Devil's Bride, he's visibly struggling to deal with his brother's recent death, dazedly seeking out his powerful cousin, the Duke (Devil) to help him deal, and Devil delivers that support gently and patiently and keeps the poor kid calm and focused on the task of "always the gentleman". ("Make your bow.") But for all that, there's nothing here to characterize Simon as typical CYNSTER. He's all growed up and doing little more than bouncing from bed to bed. When we meet him again he's just inherited a house and he's ready for his own wife and kids.
Simon and Portia have known each other awhile, and his learned, as well as natural, tendency to protect women has always rankled Portia. At first I wondered why she wouldn't be flattered to have a big, strong, handsome man looking out for her, but then realized that her reaction is understandable, considering that in no way are they blood relatives, thereby making what she does or does not do, really none of his business. But apparently, he has managed to make an ass of himself time and again, and I'd cuss him out, too.
Portia wants babies and realizes that she must be married. Good girl. Add that to Simon's decision to follow in the footsteps of his formidable, older, dreamboaty cousins and it's a Cynster story, ya'll! The hitch in the get-along (besides all the hatin') is that she wants to know what it is that drives men and women to marriage. She needs to be tutored by someone with experience and this gentleman also must know how to be discreet. It seems that she needs a rake, who by definition is: a male, especially in fashionable society, who is indifferent to moral restraints; and given to immoral or improper conduct (a strange term so blithely thrown around by romance authors and their female characters - considering what it means - when used to describe the hero, who rarely acts this way).
Enter Simon. She'll overlook his rake reputation because she thinks she can trust him. She can. He's pedigreed. (But why, if you're a woman and HAD to pick a man to get naked in front of, would you pick a man you're not interested in and can't stand?) The games start. Without informing her of his interest in her as his wife, he's playing to convince her to get serious and consider him "husband", and she's playing because he kisses REALLY gooood, and she's found out that sex feels really GOOOOD. So maybe he would be a good husband. But wait, maybe they can just have the baby. Maybe - Baby. Baby - Maybe. Wife or wifey? Wifey or wife? And it goes on and on like this for the duration.
Laurens is the best I've read who sets this time period wonderfully. By the end of every book, you'll have learned new vocabulary and a lot about the Regency and I love how she does it. She is excellent at this. The period was so remarkably different and . . . sweet. Buffets, servants, butlers, genteel entertainments, men being perfect gentlemen . . . man! Why can't we do this kind of stuff nowadays? It is so sweet. But what became quickly tiresome was the page after page of "lessons".
Now, folk ought to stop mistaking "sensual and romantic" with "sex for the hell of it". Sex without an emotional attachment and/or commitment is just bumping uglies and there's nothing sensual or romantic about that. You have to stretch your imagination, supply your own dialog, history and present story in order to here find a degree of sensuality or romance, because that's not how we were set up. As far as we know, even as they approached each sexual interlude they were still hatin' on each other. It seems the only time they began to realize that their negative feelings had changed to NOT love, but concern (and that's what I get from it), is when Portia was in danger. Which brings me to the murder.
This, I figured, must be the plot, and as modestly as it was written I found myself looking forward to those scenes. It provided a respite from pages of non-romantic sex.
After almost the entire family showed up in Scandal's story, I began looking forward to the "crossovers", and came to expect them; but for Simon, total no-shows. But the book after this (The Ideal Bride) has some of our boys back to help Devil's brother-in-law.
Unless you count going from deep dislike to deep lust to, somehow, an apparent deep trust, there is no character development, but in spite of that they do get married (hey that's no spoiler! if you've read about one Cynster you've read about the next. They ALL get tired of being single, they ALL meet some woman who doesn't want to get married but they just got to have her, they ALL have some type of murder mystery to solve and they ALL marry that reluctant woman!) You don't get to know, witness, or understand how Simon and Portia got anywhere near an altar.
Most perplexing development: Portia has fallen underwater with the murderer who now plans to murder her and Simon, after deciding that she might not like his rescuing her because he thinks that she'd think that he was thinking that she couldn't handle herself, declines to dive in after the "love of his life". Simon waits on shore - you know, to show how much he cares? And she appreciated his consideration! Feminists rule, bay-BEE! Would have served them both right and been one hell of a book if she had drowned!
The story doesn't make or break the series, so I think I can omit Simon's story from my Cynster collection.
Book Review: Imperfect writing
Summary: 3 Stars
I could have liked this book more.
Perhaps if Ms. Laurens had curbed her love of one-sentence paragraphs.
They're used for emphasis.
And they can be very effective.
At least when used sparingly.
Which is not how they're used here.
Pity.
Book Review: It had it's moments
Summary: 4 Stars
I must say that I that out of the seven books that I've read in the Cynster series this is one of the best. Actually I've only liked three. I find that Mrs. Laurens spends intirely too much time focusing on the sexual aspect of the each relationship. Seven sex scenes that are at least five pages long is out of control. It's like that's the only way anyone knows how to express there love, not so much actions and deeds. It's crazy. All that said, this book along with Devil's Bride and Scandal's Bride were the most straight forward. Simon and Portia communicated better as a couple better than any of her other characters in her previous novels.