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    Beguiling the Beauty
    Beguiling the Beauty
    Beguiling the Beauty
    Audiobook8 hours

    Beguiling the Beauty

    Written by Sherry Thomas

    Narrated by Jenny Sterlin

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A multiple RITA Award winner, Sherry Thomas delivers critically acclaimed romances to fans the world over. In Beguiling the Beauty, young widow Venetia Easterbrook harbors a deep hatred for the Duke of Lexington. Aboard an ocean liner, she seeks revenge by seducing him while disguised as another woman. But her plan backfires when she falls for him - and soon her ruse begins to unravel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 21, 2012
    ISBN9781470335809
    Beguiling the Beauty
    Author

    Sherry Thomas

    Sherry Thomas is the author of The Burning Sky and The Perilous Sea, the first two books in the Elemental Trilogy. Sherry immigrated to the United States from China when she was thirteen and taught herself English in part by devouring science fiction and romance novels. She is the author of several acclaimed romance novels and is the recipient of two RITA Awards. Sherry lives with her family in Austin, Texas.

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    Reviews for Beguiling the Beauty

    4/5

    17 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I love Sherry Thomas, and I hate writing negative reviews of books written by authors I love, so I'm going to keep this short.

      This story is so impossible that I think Sherry Thomas used up all her talent trying to hammer it into some workable form and had none left over to make it actually romantic. The early chapters stutter forward oddly; we have the hero, Christian, who is obsessed with the heroine, Venetia, for upwards of ten years despite only having glimpsed her on two brief occasions. Sherry Thomas has to work hard to make us believe that this powerful, rational, scientific man could be subject to such an irrational passion and...she doesn't quite succeed. It doesn't fit with his character, not when he's had such minimal exposure to her.

      Venetia, for her part, suffers from having to share page space with characters destined for future books. She has a complicated past herself, involving two previous marriages, which we discover right along with the backstories of Venetia's sister and her sister-in-law. Scenes that ought to have been devoted to shoring up the romantic connection between Venetia and Christian are devoted to the two sisters and their beaux-to-be.

      Then there's the particular contrivance of this book: Venetia and Christian have an affair on a boat traveling from New York to London, while Venetia wears a veil at all times so Christian never sees her face (and thus never recognizes her as a person he's been obsessed with for ten years). She's motivated by revenge, because he's said some horrible things about her, but their time together is so special that they fall madly in love. There are just so many details that need explaining here - what does she do in the dining room while wearing a veil? When in Christian's room, are the lights off? Is he wearing a blindfold? What other steps are necessary to keep him from recognizing her? And where did she learn to speak German so well that she can pass AS a German? - that I constantly felt the author's hand forcing the story along and never, ever felt the magic.

      I could go on, but it would be spoilery to discuss much more of the plot. There are more unlikely events and Sherry Thomas works really, really hard to make them seem plausible and she more or less succeeds, but that doesn't make the book itself a success. The ending, in particular, was a ridiculous letdown. Comic rather than moving.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I can't believe I'm giving a Sherry Thomas book two star (and really, the only reason it's not one star is because at least the grammar is good). This book lost me at the prologue, and it never got me back.

      Christian sees Venetia once, from a distance, and falls instantly in love. Doesn't speak to her at all, doesn't even make eye contact because she doesn't notice him, but that's it--she's so other-worldly beautiful that he falls in love and stays in love for 10 years, during which time she's widowed twice over and he grows resentful because the love of his life--whom he's never met--is just too beautiful for him to forget and he can't stand that she lives her life in a way he doesn't approve. Not that he knows how she lives her life, because, again, he doesn't know her and doesn't know anyone who's close enough to her to provide him with any details about her life.

      Ten years after not meeting her and falling in love with her anyway, he gives a lecture at Harvard about evolution. During the Q&A, in order to make a point about how dangerous beautiful women are, he, without revealing her name, recites a whole bunch of details about her life. Venetia, of course, is in the audience and is understandably horrified. Now, even though a lot of people in England would know who Christian was talking about, there's no reason for her to believe that anyone in audience would have any idea. So, as far as she knows, there are no consequences to Christian's indiscretion other than her justifiably hurt feelings. No matter, after a few days she decides she wants revenge, and the best revenge would be to get him to fall in love with her on the ship that will take them back to England. That sounds like an incredibly petty reason to seek out that level of revenge, but whatever, I'm always game for a good revenge plot. Except that doesn't happen, because after one night of hot lovin', Venetia (who's hiding her identity with a veil) is in love with Christian and now she's in a state because how can he ever forgive her?! Venetia girl, I sympathize with that long dry spell, but ain't no orgasm that great.

      So, basically, what we have here is a romance between two immature people who are too stupid to know their own minds. A heartbroken Venetia disappears, intending to never let Christian know the truth. Christian is hopeful that she'd come to him like she promised, even though he's all conflicted when he sees Venetia and once again is in thrall, because he doesn't know that Venetia is his Baroness. And it turns out that a fellow Englishwoman was in that audience at Harvard, and she knew exactly who Christian was talking about, so she happily spread the word. And around this time, the presumed infertile Venetia finds out she's pregnant (I can't believe Sherry Thomas went there). Yada yada yada, Venetia confesses everything right after Christian figures it all out on his own. They get married. Christian's pissed and Venetia is heartbroken but hopeful.

      And then, the most ridiculous resolution to the most asinine conflict occurs, in the form of the gossip who spread the word about Christian's badmouthing of Venetia. I seriously considered DNFing right there, but with 10 pages to go I carried on, with my eyes rolled way back into my head.

      I wasn't crazy about His at Night...it just wasn't for me, but it wasn't a bad book by any means. But Beguiling the Beauty was just awful. The characters were dumb, the plot was weak, the conflict was nonsense. Not a good start to this trilogy, although the secondary characters were a hell of a lot more interesting than the "hero" and "heroine," so here's hoping for the kind of writing that made Sherry Thomas an autobuy for me in the next book.
    • 4/5
      I liked this one. I think this series is quite good and the narrator is decent. The ruse had to be dragged out a bit too long in order to make the book long enough but generally I enjoyed it. I can imagine that not everyone would like the H but I didn’t mind him.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      There are times when I have a difficult time picking up a new book released by one of my favorite authors. "Why?" you might ask, and I would respond "Because I don't want my feelings or expectations to be let down." This is an example of one of those times. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of "Tempting the Bride," the 3rd book in the Fitzhugh series, and after reading 4 chapters in, I quit. I fell so quickly into the storyline, that I couldn't bear to read further until I started back at book 1. NOTE: This is not to say that the reader must read these books in order, as Ms. Thomas has done an excellent job in the past of writing each book as if it stood alone.Now to explain the deduction of a full star in this book's rating. Harsh, I believe, for a storyline and author as good as these are, but my only way to convey an important point.Ms. Thomas is the real thing. She weals her writer's pencil with such grace, as to make the stories almost poetic in their cadence.This story is no different, in theory. However, it didn't escape my notice that this book is only 304 pages long. Checking her next two "Fitzhugh" entries, resulted in noting each as being of the same 304 pages in length.To date, her previous 4 novels were: 352 (being the shortest), 382, 432, and 432. I also noted that they were published by Bantam-Dell and easily found for months afterwards, for sale at the grocery store, etc. This new trilogy is published with Berkley Books (Penguin publishing group), and when I sought to buy the second in this trilogy "Ravishing the Heiress," I could not find it at any of the places I normally purchase paperbacks (grocery stores, Target, Walgreens, etc.). Yes, it was released 8 months ago, but I still occasionally find her earlier works from 2008-2010. Also, I noticed more printing errors and the binding to be of lesser quality. You're probably wondering what this all has to do with my review of Ms. Thomas' book "Beguiling the Beauty." Nothing, yet everything!I realized from the first book read of Ms. Thomas' in 2008, that she was no ordinary writer. But I was willing to wait the year it took for her to release her next two books (2 were published in March and July of 2008, 1 in May 2009, 1 in May 2010). She never failed to remind me as to why I admire her writing.With "Beguiling the Beauty," Ms. Thomas' imagination doesn't disappoint. I loved the storyline and the characters. But the lush, musicality of her writing was a bit diminished, making her offerings closer to some of my other favorite writers. She had been, far and away, better than all other historical romance writers.I have not yet read her next two installments, but knowing that each is of the same shorter length, I imagine I might have the same complaint. Yes, after waiting two years for this story, the reader was able to purchase her next two books within 6 months of this one's release, but I think I prefer waiting for 1 year and receiving 1 book, rather than 3 after 2 years.Publishers and Agents, don't be so greedy and short-sighted. When you have a gem, don't try to add additional facets. After all, adding more cuts, results in less of the product, and that is frequently not a good thing.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      At first I had a hard time getting into this book. It jumped around way too much switching POV's many times in the beginning. I see the purpose for it. To set up the future books but I felt it could have been done a little more artfully. I actually ended up loving the books. It was so twisty, with deceptions and secrets that it keep me glued to the page. Oh and I met Sherry Thomas at a conference. She was so lovely I would buy her books just for that reason alone.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      tedious in some places, but not that bad overall.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The premise was a little difficult to believe but it still made for a good story if you could suspend disbelief. The main male character pulled on my heart strings with the unabashed way he loved the MFC. The way he openly loved and was willing to do anything for her was very moving.

      1 person found this helpful