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TAKEN BY SURPRISE
Susan Johnson, Thea Devine, and Katherine O'Neal
Kensington, Jan 2003, $15.00, 352 pp.
ISBN: 1575668165
"From Russia With Love" by Susan Johnson. In 1570 Russia, Prince Shuisky exiles his wife Tatiana for failing to provide a male heir. The princess meets and makes love with her neighbor Stavr. If Shuisky learns about Stavr he will kill her paramour. The engaging intrigue of the court of Ivan the Terrible and the Russian countryside battle for supremacy with sex scenes that could melt the Siberian ice.

"Her Lord and Master" by Thea Devine. In 1810 the bored Earl of Wick fears that the required wife will make his ennui worse. He establishes a game of bedding virgins with one eventually becoming Lady Wick. Jenise enters his game to enact vengeance for Wick's treatment of her sister, but never expected the passion between them. This not a by the book Regency because it employs sexual encounters that could keep Napoleon's army heated.

"Erotic Déjà vu" by Katherine O'Neal. By 1888, the sun never sets on those who have read a Celia Wybourne erotic novel. On Gibraltar, she sees the stranger that she has recently seen in several other locales. She confronts psychic Royce Tyler who insists they are soul mates. He teaches her the art of love making until his enemy captures them and turns her into Scheherazade with a sexy tale. Though the trysts feel like déjà vu, this Victorian romance could defrost the polar icecaps.

These historicals contain unnecessary shock value profanity and copious fornication frolics, but the authors are known for their erotic romances so that no one should be TAKEN BY SURPRISE.

Harriet Klausner


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