Wicked Intentions: Number 1 in series (Maiden Lane)

As soon as I read this, book number 1 I bought the whole series. Each book is connected by character, although each book does stand alone and tells its own story. I read them one after the other - great. Typical historical romance escapism - highly unlikely in reality (I should think) but great entertainment! I believe there is another book in the pipeline for this series and I will be buying it when it is available.

Good read

Temperance Dews first meet Lazarus Huntington (Lord Caire) in the dingy backstreets of the ST. Giles area of London when she is from having collected an infant to be placed at the foundling home she helps to run. Caire is bending over the body of a man whom he had killed. He is in search of the person responsible for the vicious murder and mutilation of his mistress.The foundling home is in desperate need of financial support and Caire needs someone who knows their way around the alleyways of St. Giles; so Temperance and Lazarus come to an arrangement. He will squire her around various parties and other events where she can be introduced to people who may sponsor/support the home and she will show Caire around St. Giles.The attraction between them is hampered by Temperance's guilty over her feelings for her late husband and Caire's loveless childhood recollections and his needs as far as sexual fulfilment are concerned. He also has very real problems with being touched - he feels severe pain when touched skin to skin. Only his late baby sister and mistress were able to do so without hurting him.This is the first in the Maiden Lane series and things have been nicely set up for potential relationships yet to come. I am looking forward to reading the remaining books.

As is often in this genre this novel is one of a series. The books are competently written and fulfil the expectations of the genre and I've enjoyed the ones I've read. I bought five of these books before I lost interest when the characters began to blur and I began to feel repetitiveness creeping in.

I really enjoyed this book and hope the rest of the series lives up to this standard.It is set in an earlier period than normal for this genre and as long as you ignore the various small historical inaccuracies, it is a really interesting story with some pleasing central character developments. It will also be good to see the supporting cast return as the series develops further.Oh, and I loved the sex scenes!

I have read a number of Elizabeth Hoyt's books before and particularly like her "Legend of the Four Soldiers" series, in my opinion Wicked Intentions is just as good if not better than that series. The character's, unlike in many historical romances are not perfect they have fault and problems, which together they over-come. The book is set in St. Giles one of london's slum, it centres around the characters of Temperance and Lord Caire , Temperance runs a home for orphans, set up by her dead father, Lord Caire asks her for help in searching for the murderer of his dead mistress.The book has many twists and turns and the reader is given an insight into the lives of Temperance's family and also the Ton which Lord Caire is a member. Hoyt's characters are fleshed out and by the end of the book I was really routing for the two main characters, you are also given a tantalising hint at the characters who I hope will have there own books.I would highly recommend this book if you have liked any of her previous books or are a fan of Mary Balogh or Lisa Kleypas.

It's been a while that I have been interested enough in a book of this genre to read it the whole way through. Elizabeth Hoyt has done a good job with this one, good introduction of secondary characters and nice to see the heroines are not the box standard virgins but more mature women. I didn't buy into the motive of the murderer, it was the weakest part of the book but otherwise an entertaining read.

I have had a run of books that simply bored me and I have given up. So in despair I decided to re read a book I enjoyed some years ago . I loved it again, a number of linked stories foreshadowing the development of the series ahead.

I enjoyed this story. It had some steamy, sexy parts that made me tingle all over just reading it.! There was charity and generousity and love and mystery woven through this story to keep me intrigued enough to keep reading. Elizabeth Hoyt is a first class author and I will look for more novels written by her in future , for sure.

*5 SHINING STARS!!!*Honestly, I don't know why it took me so long to dive into this series. I had only read Silence's book (Book 3) a while back and it didn't blow me away but Duke of Sin caught my eye so I thought I may as well give this series another go. But this...this was just magical. The gritty backdrop and dark tone with the Jack the Ripper-esq murder mystery really added nicely to the Georgian era of lower class slum living London. I just really couldn't put this down because of that. The world building and detail is exceptionally on point and so good. Even the murder mystery is gripping because it's so grizzly and realistic. I appreciated that Hoyt held nothing back there. Made for a much more raw, realistic honest read. As for the leads..... *sigh* what can I say?Two vulnerable, lonely closed off hearts, battling their own demons who come together so naturally without restraint. I don't know who surprised me more in this, straight-laced proper widow Temperance Dews or domineering cynical brutally sharp-tongued Lazarus Huntington. I didn't think Lazarus's whole long silver haired look would work for me, I kept thinking Lucius Malfoy but without the permanent sneer. But Lazarus made it work. Boy did it work for him.Hoyt's handling of prose and way with words in this is so beautiful and layered. I kept finding myself re-reading passages simply because I enjoyed the delivery of lines and turn of phrase. Her descriptive imagery is so clear and lyrically smart. I don't remember it being this good in her Legend of the Four Soldiers series which was a total bust for me.And I really have to say I’m most impressed and applaud the direction Hoyt took her heroine here. All my (6 lol!) years of reading and piles of historical romance books I’ve read, I have yet to come across a heroine like Temperance. A woman who enjoys passion and sexual intimacy but is embarrassed by it and tries in vain to tamp it down and live a good clean life because of a mistake she made. On paper that sounds so derivative and hysterically cliche but it wasn’t here. She’s so much more complex and human then that that it honestly blew me away. I was waiting for her secret to be an overblown overused HR trope of being cheated on, abandoned, her husband not being able to get it up given all the subtle internalized angsting and hand wringing but no. It’s something much more bold, realistic and unforgivingly honest IMO. She slept with another man while she was married to her husband. Happened only once.Let me be clear, Hoyt doesn’t try to make Temperance into something she’s not, not a revolutionary ‘modern’ heroine of her time who craves sex all the time, no excuses or justifications are made for her mistake, no ‘he deceived me!’ arguments. And I think that honestly saved this from becoming a martyr crusade of 20 ways she needs to repent and the hero can show her the right ways to have sex. Nope. This was about a woman who is warm blooded and enjoys sex and learning to accept that and forgive herself. I found that so damn genuine, real and refreshing. FINALLY someone who gets it! Someone who knows how to approach the subject of sex and women in the historical era in a believable and vulnerable way.Seeing her blossom and take ownership of her own desires and so honestly with a man who wouldn’t judge her and yes even calling her out on her martyr tendencies was a wonderful payoff. I was cheering her on. Yessss. Go girl! Own it!The *only* thing I do wish was a little more fulfilling was the reveal of the St. Giles killer. That to me was a little too predictable (and obvious) and I found the killer’s motives to be too thin & all over the place. There’s killing women in a fit of rage, a fit of using them as an example and then there’s doing it as a show of scaring off competing business (which I found really hard to swallow) using both reasons just didn’t jive for me and didn’t connect well. But overall, loved it! Can’t wait to dive into the rest of this series! :D

Temperance Dews arbeitet im Waisenhaus ihrer Familie in St. Giles. Nachdem ihr Sponsor verstorben ist, ist das Heim in Geldnöten. Als sie sich eines Abends Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire gegenüber sieht, zögert sie nicht lange sein Angebot, dass er sie in seine Kreise einführt um einen neuen Sponsor zu finden, wenn sie ihn durch die Straßen von St. Giles führt, anzunehmen.Lord Caire befindet sich in St. Giles auf der Suche nach einem Mörder. Doch alleine bleiben ihm die Türen in St. Giles verschlossen, doch mit Temperance Hilfe kann er seine Nachforschungen weiterführen.Auch bei Lord Caire wendet Elizabeth Hoyt ihre Theorie des ungewöhnlichen Helden an. Lord Caires Aussehen und einige seiner Charaktereigenschaften sind sehr ungewöhnlich. aber in keiner Weise unpassend oder übertrieben. (Ich möchte hier nicht zu viel verraten)Auch Temperance ist ein ungewöhnlicher Charakter. Was ich persönlich super finde, weil es selten Heldinnen gibt, die auch ungewöhnliche Charaktereigenschaften aufweisen.Lord Caire und Temperance sind eine feurige Kombination. Gemeinsam jagen sie nach einem Mörder in den gefährlichen Straßen von einem der gefährlichsten Viertel Londons. Die Geschichte verliert nicht ihre Spannung, auch wenn sie sich viel mit der Beziehung der beiden beschäftigt.Meiner Meinung nach vielleicht das beste Buch, das Elizabeth Hoyt bis jetzt veröffentlicht hat. Ich war absolut begeistert und kann es nur jedem wärmstens empfehlen!

This was a good start to a great series.

4 starsThis was a very good story. I liked both Lazarus and Temperance and enjoyed seeing them get together. I tagged this as light BDSM because there's some bondage and blindfolds involved but that's as deep as things go.Temperance is a widow who now runs a home for orphaned children with her brother, Winter. The home and adjoining school were started by their father and Winter took it over when he died. Temperance helped out but when he husband died, her entire focus became the home. They used to have a rich patron that gave money to the home that kept it running but since he died, the money has dried up and the home is in danger of being shut down.Lazarus is a Lord in the aristocracy of England. He was raised by parents that showed him no love and as an adult, Lazarus has trouble feeling anything. The one person he did love was his little sister and she died at a young age. Lazarus has issues that have made him seek certain proclivities in the bedroom that most people see as unnatural and because of this, Lazarus has made sure his bed partners are paid mistresses and the like.Lazarus had a mistress that had been with him for 3 years but was killed a couple months before the beginning of the story. He didn't love her but felt the need to find her murderer anyways. Lazarus began lurking around St. Giles (a very bad part of London) to try to get info on who the murderer might be when he found Temperance. Something about her attracted Lazarus and since she knows a lot about the area he needs help getting around, he decides to hire her as a guide. Temperance is rather shocked when a member of the aristocracy shows up, wanting to make a deal with her. She's leery about his intentions but since the home is over a month behind in rent, she agrees to help Lazarus in exchange for some money to help out with the more urgent bills as well as help finding a new patron that would help support the home in the future.Unfortunately, Winter finds out about her arrangement with Lazarus and tells her other 2 brothers so all 3 of them can give her a hard time about it. However, since they have no good ideas on how to get the money for the home, they have to deal with her association with Lazarus. Temperance and Lazarus start working together and it soon becomes clear that they have a strong attraction to each other. Lazarus isn't sure about it but finds himself unable to stay away, wanting to see Temperance for more reasons than their arrangement or their physical attraction. Temperance finds that the more time she spends with Lazarus, the more she wants to spend with him, regardless of the disapproval and disappointment Winter shows over her situation. Lazarus and Temperance seek out the murder while they become closer and try to deal with their personal issues that seem determined to get in the way. Thankfully, Lazarus and Temperance realize that they're best together and they get past their issues (and through some drama and danger) to end the story starting a well deserved HEA together.This was a very enjoyable story. I liked Temperance and thought she was a good heroine. She was smart and sensible while still being human (in a good way). Lazarus was a good hero. TBH, I thought that he'd be more resistant to his feelings for Temperance but he did well at accepting things and being willing to move forward. Overall, the story was very good and it was interesting enough that I was engaged in the story through to the end. I'd recommend this story. :)* note - I listened to the audio version of this story and the narrator did a very good job. FYI, the last 16 min of the audio is a preview for the next book.