Eloisa James

Regency/Essex Sisters Series

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Let me be frank: I like a hot romance.

Not just a passionate love story.

I'm talkin' a melt-in-your-mouth, savor-the-flavor, and don't-show-your-husband-cause-he-wouldn't-understand kind of romance.

But that doesn't mean it has to rate a wicked five hearts on the sensuality chart.

Nope. It can be pretty innocent.

All it needs is the key ingredient that makes a romance sizzle and sing --

Anticipation.

Great romance is all about the breathless expectation we feel when a writer spins out the perfect emotional and sensual tension between hero and heroine.

Eloisa James does just that, and splendidly so, in her newest, the delightful, graceful, and subtly poignant "Kiss Me, Annabel."

The exquisite Miss Annabel Essex has spent years perfecting the genteel art of sultry flirtation for one reason only: to win a wealthy English husband who will ensure she'll never feel the humiliation she did growing up poor.

Her diligent practice proves for naught when she's found in a compromising position with Ewan, Lord Ardmore, a braw, bonnie, but, alas, broke Scottish earl.

They must marry, and the story becomes terrifically sensual as the two travel to Ewan's home in Scotland, playing a game along the way in which kisses are exchanged for truths.

Annabel finds this an appealing way in which to lay bare for Ewan her misgivings about him, and about her own motivations.

But when Ewan magnanimously accepts Annabel's flaws, she begins to think perhaps the lad's ego needs a little taming.

"Kiss Me, Annabel" is a beautiful, well-mannered novel.

And Eloisa James is an extraordinary writer with a terrific instinct for balancing technique and tone.

That's important, especially when James develops her devilishly clever device of the "kissing game."

Using the game as an anchor, James keeps readers' anticipation keen with witty, down-to-earth prose.

At the same time, James introduces the theme of healthy exploration of morality and faith which underpins the brief period she has to get the lovers from first kiss to sensual denouement.

The resultant self-discovery James allows Ewan and Annabel makes their emotional and sensual union nothing less than breathtaking.

Eloisa James has a luscious way of developing attraction between well-and fully-drawn secondary characters -- of keeping their stories fresh, and the reader wanting more.

Only problem with that is she's become a dab hand at creating that most insidious kind of romance novel anticipation --

The lure of the series.

There's simply nothing else for it.

While we're waiting for James to finish "The Taming of the Duke," due out in April, you must read "Kiss Me, Annabel."

I beg of you.

Buy the book.