To Live Again by V. L. Edwards

Item: To Live Again
Rating: 2.5
Author: Sparkles

January 29, 2015 Sparkles Book Review 0 ★★½

To Live Again on January 3rd 2014
Genres: Historical
Pages: 117
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Warren DeWinter, the Earl of Broadmoor, a widower, with a young son, grieves for his late wife. Warren hunts for his pleasures on the streets of London, rather than the ballrooms of the ton. On his monthly excursion, he meets a young woman he believes is a lady of the evening. What he finds…is an untried virgin, desperate to feed her brother and sister.

When Warren bribes Amelia’s tale from of her, he finds that not only did he take her innocence, she’s a gentlewoman. He feels compelled to marry her. Determined to protect his wife’s memory, he only spends time with Amelia in the bedchamber, where passion threatens to burn them up. However, Amelia’s determined to win his affections by lavishing love on his son. Will Warren be able to resist Amelia’s beguiling ways? Can Amelia bring the walls surrounding his heart crashing down, allowing Warren…to live again?

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

In To Live Again, we have the poor Earl of Broadmoor who has lost his beloved wife in a terrible accident and is left with his little boy. He is adamant to never remarry, such is his love and devotion to his departed spouse. Being a man, he goes into the night in monthly expeditions to find a “lady” to help him assuage his… baser needs.

One night he engages a beautiful young woman who it turns out is not exactly what he expected, but is what he really needed.

After accidentally deflowering a virgin, with him being an upright kind of fellow, he decides to marry her killing two birds with one stone: he will have a companion to warm his bed (daily as opposed to once a month) and his little boy will get a loving step-mother.

Amelia, this very unfortunate-but-fortunate young lady, is an orphan who has been left with the responsibility of raising her two little half-siblings. Turned out of her home and with no money left, she turns to the only thing she feels will help her and, let me put it this way, she hits the jackpot.

Thus begins Amelia’s battle to win Broadmoor’s heart. Because from the start, he tells her he will share his life, home and body with her, but she will never have his love. I can say that I really liked the premise of this story but I felt that the characters lacked depth. They were too one-dimensional.

Amelia was supposed to be a virgin, who decides to sell her body, then she does and likes it, then she feels bad, then she agrees to marry the dude she gave herself to but she does all this in stride, she has like zero issues with any of this, and I found it a bit unreal. It feels like, for both of them, anyone would have been fine to fill the role, and this was not conducive to being engaged by the main characters.

For someone who was very attached to her siblings (and she takes immediately to her new stepson) we see her spending little time with them. The great relationship she develops with the little boy is very, very tacit, as is the relationship between her and Broadmoore.

I believe this is another instance when we are told instead of being shown by the author what happens in their story.

Still, it was a quick easy read and the sex scenes where pretty hot. I will read more from V.L. Edwards in the future because I liked her storyline, even if the last little bit with the catalyst for the resolution of the H’s feelings had me rolling my eyes.

Rating: 2.5 Quick and Easy Stars