Robyn DeHart's Forbidden Love Series Part 1:A LITTLE BIT WICKED

Remember the Robyn DeHart book, TREASURE ME that I absolutely loved? I decided to give another one of her books a read and I found the entirety of her Forbidden Love trilogy for 5.99 on Amazon. The deal was too good to pass up so I bought all three, meaning my next few reviews will all three books from the series. As one might expect each book deals with some sort of Victorian era forbidden love and how the heroes and unconventional heroines reach their happy endings.

                The series starts off with A LITTLE BIT WICKED. In this story our heroine is Vivian March, a fallen woman who made the best of a heartbreak by becoming the Parago
n, a woman who makes sure the scandals of high society disappear, the only thing she asks in return is a favor whenever she needs it. Our hero is pretty generic. He’s the youngest son of an earl who spent most of his adult abroad giving adventure tours and providing protection for his clients that is until his brother suddenly dies, which he doesn’t hear about until months later. Once he gets the letter he returns to England to become the new heir just in time for his sister, Clarissa and Aunt Maureen to need the assistance of the Paragon.

                 While I enjoyed the story well enough, the characters weren’t quite as awesome as they were in TREASURE ME. On the plus side, I love the idea that Vivian is a thirty-four year old, self-made woman. You don’t see middle-aged heroines in many romance novels and especially in historical. I also love that’s she’s the older one in the relationship, in fact the age gap is the same as most historicals , just gender-reversed, which is always refreshing to see. And I like that the reason the hero is chasing her is because  he kissed her ten years ago and it was just so good that he can’t forget it(she thought he was the lover that eventually scorned her).  In fact there are a lot of things Vivian does that the traditional male alpha hero does. For instance she believes that emotions, love and other squishy things are a weakness because she gave her heart to a man named Frederic who scorned her after stealing her virtue. She even has a deep, dark secret(the loss of her virtue) that she fears will ruin everything if it’s revealed.  

                Despite the praise here, I don’t think DeHart took the gender subversions far enough. The hero, Marcus Kinkaid,  is still an alpha despite being younger, not to mention he crosses the line into alphahole a little too often. A lot of his kisses he gives Vivian feel a little bit like forced seduction.

Take this scene for instance; this is one of their earliest kisses:

“I was playing no game. I meant precisely what I said. I’ll admit it was not very gentlemanly to inquire about your age, but I do believe you were not in your first season when we met in that garden, were you?” he didn’t wait for her response. “I  grant you, I was impossibly rude to inquire, but I am at a loss as to deciphering your precise age.”

She opened her mouth then promptly shut it

He knew that by London standards he was behaving outrageously but flirting with Miss Vivian March proved most entertaining. Not to mention a temptation he simply couldn’t resist.

“I prefer women of a certain age,” he said “I find them refreshingly honest. Intelligent, with minds of their own.” He took another step, closing the distance, between them.” And remarkably passionate”. His remark did little more than keep her locked in her current position.

                The situation escalates, they banter a bit more and he forces a kiss on Vivian’s lips. She later explains that she enjoyed it of course, but the situation and the others that follow made me more than a little uncomfortable, especially since Marcus banters far more than Vivian does.  Despite that I don’t exactly hate Marcus, by the end I truly believe he redeemed himself and loved Vivian. Not to mention  every  now and then their verbal sparring puts them on equal ground. One of my favorite scenes is when she trying to teach Marcus to flirt London style(so he can marry someone else and leave her alone) and he  retaliates by asking why London Society  has to make  flirting  so complicated  and explains how lion mating is straight forward to prove his point. In turn Vivian explains that London Society  has to be civil.  The entire scene was hilarious and I wish Marcus and Vivian had more scenes like it.  When they do have sex for the first time Vivian does initiate, but only after several other forced seduction scenes and Marcus requests that she intiate love making  because he knows she’ll eventually give into his charms. Again, he does redeem himself but it takes far too long in my opinion, which is the reason I tend to favor beta heroes over alphas.

                The secondary cast is basically made of sequel bait (Clarissa Kinkaid, Justin Rodale, Aunt Maureen and George Wilbanks), a mostly harmless jerkass named Frederic( Vivian’s former lover) and Vivian’s Aunt Rose. There are likable enough, but not particularly deep. I’m sure that will change as the series continues, but for now I didn’t find any of them particularly engaging.

                Some other problems I had with the book was the pace. While the story flowed find a lot of the big deciding  moments basically hinged on a simple conversation the characters could have had a lot sooner than they did. I wanted more to come out of Frederic blackmailing and following Vivian around, but the blackmail issues was resolved really quickly when Vivian reveals her “big secret”  to all of London society in order to stop a girl in a similar situation from jumping to her death. The girl realizes it was dumb idea to jump to her death over a heartbreak , Marcus punches out Frederic and the story ends with  babies ever after.  

                All in all I’d give A LITTLE BIT WICKED  a 3 out of 5. It was an enjoyable enough romp that I want to read the rest of the series, but the pace was a little slow for me and the characters were less enjoyable to read about  than I hoped. If you want a quick escape go buy the series on Amazon, it’s still only 5.99 and worth at least one read through.