Cressida's Dilemma (Salon of Sin #1) by Beverley Oakley
Add to Goodreads
A woman who fears her husband is being unfaithful takes an extraordinary and sensual journey to discover an unexpected truth—and helps unravel the mystery of a lost child. Eight years of marriage has not dimmed Cressida—Lady Lovett’s—love for her husband, but the birth of five children has cooled her ardor. Now rumors are circulating that the kind, dashing and seemingly ever-patient Justin, Lord Lovett, has returned to the arms of his former mistress, and Cressida believes her choices are stark—welcome her husband back to the marital bed and risk a sixth pregnancy she fears will kill her, or lose him forever. With the astonishing discovery that methods exist to enable the innocent Cressida to transform herself into the vixen of her husband’s dreams without expanding her nursery, she seeks to repay the woman responsible for her empowerment…only to discover her unlikely benefactress was, and perhaps still is, her husband’s mistress. Reader Advisory: This book contains a scene of voyeurism and brief FF and FMF scenes.
3 out of 5 (good)
Independent Reviewer for Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
The idea of the book was an interesting idea. It held the possibility of being an incredible book, one that left you wanting more and one that you couldn’t put down. I think that with a bit more detail in the scenery and the characters would have helped to make it more appealing. There were parts that did grasp my attention and kept me reading to see what was going to happen next and led me to believe that the novel had picked its pace. In those parts I was able to immerse myself in the reading and quite enjoyed it.
This book wasn’t terrible but I wouldn’t describe it as great. It was a slow start and was hard to get into. While this book it a historical novel, I know the language will be different, that was not the deterrent. The book didn’t keep me hooked the entire time. It was hit or miss as to whether I could stay interested.
I think ultimately, you should take a chance and read the book. You might absolutely love it. It’s worth a chance!
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Historical Romance Author Beverley Eikli took her passion for handsome rogues and worthy heroines to new heights when she worked in the back of low flying survey aircraft over Greenland and French Guyana. Her imaginative forays into the ballrooms of Regency high society, scribbled on paper during long and turbulent survey lines were, however, counterbalanced by the efforts of her mostly male fellow crewmembers to teach her an appreciation of a cold Windhoek Lager or fiery KWV Brandy during three-month contracts away from home. While Beverley’s broad repertoire of fictional heroes was fine-tuned through years of working in the male-dominated safari and airborne survey industries, her mostly nineteenth century heroines, by contrast, live very sheltered lives to the one their creator has enjoyed.
Flawed heroines and themes of redemption often find their way into her books, together with lashings of intrigue, mystery and sometimes adventure.
Beverley now lives with her family in Melbourne, Australia, twenty years after hitching her star to the Cessna Caravan (now a Boeing 777) of the handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met around a campfire in Botswana’s beautiful Okavango Delta where she ran a safari lodge at the time. She teaches creative writing, makes historical costumes and helps with the running of the family-run B&B Wuthering Heights in South Australia’s beautiful Clare Valley. (Facebook) Beverley’s latest project is set in Colonial Lesotho where she was born and where her father prosecuted medicine murder and illegal diamond buying cases in the African kingdom’s rugged mountains during the 1960s. She also writes more sensual romance as Beverley Oakley.