SAINT SIN by Mary Gillgannon could have been a nice read, but it fell flat in all the important categories. It lacked character development, romantic development, and believable romance. I give this novel 2 stars only because the premise of the book has potential, but I don't recommend this book in its current state.
In SAINT SIN, twenty-five year old Ariella Lyndgate is finally getting a season in London, but her younger brother has ruined it by losing an unbelievable amount of money gambling. In order to save her brother, Ariella approaches the gaming den owner to work out a repayment schedule, but the owner provides only one way for Ariella to pay back her brother's debt--by stealing the Blue Moon, a large diamond owned by the notorious recluse, Michael St. Cyr, Earl of Penwell.
In her efforts to gain access and steal the diamond, Ariella has to spin some serious tales, and when those lies fail, she resorts to using her feminine wiles. Her efforts backfire, though, when she falls in love with Penwell and realizes that she's wronged him. Making up for her subterfuge won't be easy.
While the premise of the book--a young woman attempts to help her brother get out of debt--could have been developed into an enjoyable story, I did not enjoy this novel. From the start, Ariella's actions and reactions seemed contrived, and her interactions with Penwell were outrageous. There was very little character foundation for the reader to understand Ariella's irrational behavior, and there was no character development for her at all. Despite Ariella's proclaimed "change of heart", her character flaws in the beginning of the novel remained her flaws through to the end.
I honestly didn't see that much change in Penwell's character either. His only epiphany was that he was in love with Ariella, which when looked at closely, only highlights the fact that there was no foundation for, or development of, the romance. Their relationship was purely physical, and so the declarations of love in the end lacked any kind of credibility.
The purely physical aspect of the romance was also extremely graphic and pervasive, with some light bondage, earning a 5 out of 5 on the heat scale. Given the number of pages devoted to the physical intimacies, while this novel was categorized as your typical romance, it really should be categorized as erotic.
On the technical side, there were many typographical errors, including inconsistency throughout the novel of how the name of Penwell's former love interest is spelled--Alexandria or Alexandra. Given all of the foregoing, I would not recommend this novel to any readers.
(Editor's Note: We have changed the category to Erotic Romance)
** Review originally written for The Romance Reviews.com at http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=11064.
