Seduction & Scandal by Charlotte Featherstone

Wowza, what a good book. The writing was just excellent and beautiful. Sigh. Isabella Fairmont has had a scandalous upbringing due to her mothers many liaisons and it has made Isabella realize she needs a stable marriage, even if it is passionless. She has been writing a story about a handsome man with silver blue eyes named Death and that is where she pours her passion out. When she attends a ball one night with her cousin, Lady Lucy with whom she is living with now as her mother has passed away, she catches the eye of the smoldering Lord Black and is quite startled as to his resemblance to Death from her book. But there is no looking away as they dance together and so her long buried passion grows and grows.

Lord Black is one of the Brethren Guardians, along with his two friends, who are in charge of keeping a chalice, scroll and pendant from the public so the evil they posses together does not come to light. When the chalice and pendant go missing, the men start a hunt for them to keep them from the wrong hands. This sounds a bit over dramatic and I was a bit hesitant as to how much this dark magic was going to factor into the story but I was very pleased with how it plays out. Yes, there is a bit of a creepy, odd scene with Lucy but really besides that, there is really no supernatural elements present which I was happy about. The mystery is left hanging a bit and will be continued into the next story, Pride and Passion and I am eagerly waiting for it so I can follow up.

Throughout the story, little tidbits of the past of Isabella and Lord Black are revealed. We learn that there is an unfortunate incident from Isabellas past that takes quite some time to be revealed and I wished it had been delivered a bit bit sooner. Also, we learn that Lord Black already knows of this incident and in fact, has some sort of part in it. Again, it takes awhile to be revealed and I personally would have liked to have known a bit sooner in the story. But those are really my only quips about the storyline. I can not believe I have not read Charlotte Featherstone before! She is an incredible storyteller weaving a sinfully, hauntingly romantic story that I loved! I am guessing there are going to be three stories in this series and I hope she can spin it off into more because I loved all the characters, primary and secondary and can't wait to get my hands on more! 4 1/2 stars

I received this ebook from the publisher via netgalley.com