Nora’s potion. ( )

The whole forbidden romance aspect of “The Virgin and the Rogue” really did it for me with this one. I was expecting something overly cheesy, overused, and played out yet I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Charlie and Samuel’s relationship and intense connection they shared alongside the oh so hot steamy moments they had throughout the entire series.

Like typical romances, of course drama ensues when Charlotte tries to fight off her attraction with the rake when it’s revealed she betrothed to a childhood friend but that all changes in an instant when she takes a elixir created by her sister that will forever change the course of their relationship forever. This is the perfect combination for any reader looking for romance, steamy moments, opposites attract forbidden historical romance.

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1.5 stars

The first 40% of this wasn't for me. The heroine gets awful cramps and her sister makes concoctions to help with the cramps, except this time her tweaking of it creates an aphrodisiac which causes the heroine to get horny af. She's the quiet sister and has been engaged to a childhood neighbor, who I thought she was kind of friends with but later in the story they don't seem to have that relationship at all. At the same time this aphrodisiac hits her, our hero shows up to stay at his step-brother's house, even though they don't really have a relationship but he's a lost soul right now. At night they meet up in the hallway and the heroine jumps the hero's bones and grinds on him to completion. The first 40% is pretty much the heroine in heat and the hero benefiting?/enduring? it.

There was about 10% in the middle that I enjoyed, because our heroine and hero actually talk and show some development of feelings. I love how historical romance can show the heat and emotions in the subtleties and I'm a sucker for innocuous scenes like this:
She moistened her lips and pressed, “What is your name?”
He sent her a small smile. “You know my name.”
“Kingston is a surname.”
“It’s all anyone ever calls me.”
She frowned. “I’d like to call you by your name. Your true name.”
“You’d be the only one to use it.”
The only one. At that, she hesitated. She knew she should let the matter drop. It would be far too intimate to be the only person using his Christian name. She didn’t want that intimacy to exist between them. Still, she heard herself saying, “I don’t mind that.”
After several beats of silence, he answered. Over the chirping of birds and wind rustling in the branches, he said, “It’s Samuel. Sam.”

When they call each other by their first names, gah, I love it because of the closeness/intimacy it shows.

Anyway, after that middle, the second half has the heroine still dealing with her childhood betrothal, she begins to question it around 65% and then breaks it off 75%, which is too late in the story for me; it doesn't leave enough time to give me what I want from my mains. The heroine and hero don't spend enough time together in the second half to develop the emotion I wanted between them and then when the hero comes back after leaving and puts his heart out there to ask her to marry him, she brushes him off until an extremely hurried scene of the hero, kind of stupidly, risks his life and “Oh! I just realized I love him!”. MEH.

I feel like this tried to meld erotic and historical romance but the beginning was goofy, am I supposed to be laughing at her being in heat? instead of hot, steamy, she's horny and then absurdly their penetrative sex scene was almost blink and you miss it. If I want erotic, I read erotic, this wasn't hot enough to me for that, when I want historical romance, I read historical romance but this didn't have near enough the character development for me to enjoy it in that aspect (Jess Michaels does a better job of melding hot historical). So, yeah, this was a fail for me but I see a lot enjoyed it and thought it was steamy hot, so ymmv! ( )

Middle of the road romance. Cute, but no true yearning. I did love Charlotte choosing herself over his proposal the first time. I could never lol. ( )

I enjoy some of Ms. Jordan's books very much and others are not for me. This one falls on the side of not for me. Charlotte Langley is the dull daughter, engaged to a childhood friend with overbearing parents. When she takes a potion for her cramps, it affects her like an aphrodisiac, just in time for the arrival of the roguish Kingston who takes some advantage of her fever.
The plot was unrealistic, as far as I was concerned. For someone who supposedly has such hidden passions to put up with her future mother-in-law seemed silly. Kingston was a little better but I found most of the characters forgettable and inane. There's a lot of sex which can be fine but not when it takes the place of plot. ( )