I enjoyed this book. I really liked the character of Clint, the wrongly convicted man. But Emily took a bit more warming up to. Like most of Webb's female leads, she is a bit annoying at first. It is like, jeez, Emily it has been 10 years, let it go. But as the story went along I liked her more and felt that she was starting to grow a bit. But it was a good story overall. I can't resist the small town mystery where everyone has a secret. ( )

This was the first book I've read by Debra Webb and I liked it a lot. Emily and Clint were victims of a "small town lie" and that reflected on their lives and way of thinking.
It reminded me of Desperate Housewives but with another twist and I can say for sure that I'll be reading more books of Debra Webb. ( )

An easy read that reels you in and hooks you. Ms. Webb takes the reader on a ride that has you rooting for the "bad guy" and seeing just how life changing things can be when teenage rivalries fly out of control. ( )

It’s no secret I loved Elizabeth Hoyt’s first three books. Also I think I may have mentioned that I came close to stalker-like when I ran into her in an elevator – thankfully I managed to restrain myself to save total and complete embarrassment.

I also thoroughly enjoyed her first effort with contemporaries in Hot by alter ego Julia Harper.

So when I started reading To Taste Temptation, I fully expected to love it. And guess what? I did. It's another winner for me for Elizabeth Hoyt.

But wait – this isn’t much of a review so I’ll continue. This is the first book in a series, The Legend of the Four Soldiers. The first soldier, Samuel Hartley is a self made man from the Colonies who fought in the war. He is haunted by what happened there and has come to England with his younger sister to track down a traitor. His next door neighbour and sister to his commanding officer is Lady Emeline Gordon, a titled lady who tutors young women in all the fine arts of the upper class.

Samuel is delightful! He’s brash, he’s honest and he really doesn’t give a damn what society thinks of his odd ways. He is Very Strongly Attracted to Emeline and pursues her relentlessly.

Emeline, for her part is Very Strongly Attracted to Samuel, but she’s a snob, she’s elitist, she’s prickly as a pear and I thought she was a hoot. I don’t think she will be everyone’s favourite heroine – in fact I can see many not liking her, but I did. She’s a product of her times and her upbringing.

I love seeing Samuel get her going and getting her mad as a wet hen. He takes great delight in doing that too. They are thrown into each other’s company quite a bit when he hires her to help with his sister Rebecca.

He finally wears down her resistance and when he does – wow – the steam level left my windows fogged up. Of course afterwards, Emeline being Emeline claims that’s it – their brief affair is over. But Samuel isn’t good at taking no for an answer and relentlessly pursues her until she give in again – and then again in a country house party.

Now at this point sadly the book gets a bit of a down grading. You see, Emeline is practically engaged to her brother’s best friend – a man she loves but only as a friend of her brother’s. At this point, she runs away from Samuel and she and Vale, her brothers friend formally announce their engagement. From this point on, I admit, I would have liked to smack her a good one. Vale and Samuel had established a friendship and of course that went very quickly down the drain. Her stubbornness caused a great deal of pain for Samuel who I really enjoyed. Then later they have a final ‘one for the road’ so to speak and I thought another harder slap was in order.

But, things got straightened out – this is a romance of course and I happily finished the book.

There was also an interesting secondary story between Rebecca and O’Hare, one of the footmen employed by Samuel. I don’t know if Ms. Hoyt has something planned for them or not – but I kind of hope so.

There was another interesting thing of note about this book. In her previous trilogy, Ms. Hoyt told a series of fairy tales. She does the same thing with this book at the beginning of each chapter. Normally I tend to skip over the italicized writing at the beginning of chapters, but here as well as her other three books, I found the tale enchanting. ( )