Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (Sons of Sin, #1)

by Anna Campbell

[EBookObsessed]

Jonas Merrick is a bitter man. When his father’s marriage to his mother could not be proven, he lost his right to inherit his father’s title of Lord Hillbrook, but that was only beginning of life’s punishments. Others wanted to punish the bastard son, and a gang of boys held down and carved up his face. A hideous and constant reminder of this status as a bastard. Not only does Jonas feel betrayed by the world, but his cousin William, the current Lord Hillbrook, is the embodiment of all the evil done to Jonas and the hatred between the two fuels them both.

Jonas has seen William’s wife, Roberta, at the gaming tables and gets her to bet larger and larger sums until he holds notes that he knows she has no way of paying. His solution to her dilemma is to sleep with him for a week and he will not tell William of her debts. Jonas is enjoying the thought of defiling his cousin’s wife, a woman who often shows her disgust of his scared face.

At first he is unhappy when it is not Roberta who shows up at his doorstep as arranged, but he soon decides that spending a week bedding Robert’s sister, the beautiful Sidonie Forsythe, is so much more interesting then bedding the pompous Roberta.

Sidonie knows that her brother-in-law William has a violent temper and if he were to find out about Roberta sleeping with his enemy, his usual beating of his wife would turn deadly. She is willing to exchange her innocence for her sister’s safety. A sister who was always like a mother to her.

Sidonie very soon looks past the scars to see the man beneath. She learns that there is a thoughtful, caring man beneath his cool, aloof behavior, and that he merely uses his mockery to keep the world away, a world that has shown him nothing but pain.

As desires flame hot between the two, the question we want to answer is: can beauty win the heart of the beast?

THOUGHTS:
As you can guess, this is a beauty and the beast story. I really enjoyed the characters in this well written story. Jonas comes off at the beginning of the story as very heartless and cold, but we quickly see that he does have a conscience although he denies it, and that his coldness is a defense to people who have mistreated him either for his bastard status or his scars.

There is some false advertising in the name since there wasn’t really 7 nights as the title suggestions, as it takes a few days for Jonas to talk Sidonie into bed, but once they get there it is quite sensual and you better have a magazine handy to fan yourself with.

You should also have a hankie close by since it does get very tear-jerky at the end when misunderstandings and betrayals come into play. Of course, (thankfully) everything gets worked out for our HEA.

I would highly recommend this novel. The characters were sympathetic and easy to associate with, and the storyline took me in directions I wasn’t expecting. This was the first book in a new series by Anna Campbell, and I will be putting the next book on my list.

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