(Fiery Tales #3)
Genre: Erotic Historical Romance (17th century)
Official Blurb
Inspired by the tale of Cinderella, Lila DiPasqua weaves a steamy historical romance that offers a glass slipper, a dangerous deception, and an impoverished beauty determined to find her handsome prince…and make him pay.
Born into wealth, Sabine Laurent and her twin sister lived a life of luxury, their father’s prestigious theater frequented by royalty and aristocracy alike. And Sabine dreamed of her own prince charming—the devastatingly handsome Jules de Moutier.
That was before the loss of her sister and her family’s fall from grace—a disaster Sabine blames on the Moutier family. Now, with her father’s death, she’s inherited his sizable debt and the responsibility of caring for his spoiled long-time mistress and her two wastrel daughters. But with the help of Sabine’s eccentric friends—the balance of her father’s acting troupe—she plans to get very close to her old infatuation, seduce the rake—and make away with a fortune.
Resisting Jules’s skillful mouth and tantalizing touch is not as easy as Sabine supposed. And soon she must decide whether her desire for vengeance is greater than her desire for her one and only prince…
★✩★✩★✩★✩★✩★
**5 Smouldering Stars**
I loved A MIDNIGHT DANCE! What a fiery, passionate cocktail from the doyenne of lush sensuality, Lila DiPasqua.
I like Sabine…intelligent, brave and fiercely loyal to her remaining family and her little group of theatrical friends. I really felt her grief and pain for all she had lost…
Each day she went through the motions of living, unable to mourn her sister. Simply surviving, more dead than alive. She’d forgotten how to feel. She didn’t even want to.
I enjoyed seeing her outwit Jules who underestimated the resourcefulness and cunning of his ‘silver-eyed forest fairy” on more than one occasion.
Jules is desperate to restore his family honour, reclaim his life and take revenge on those responsible for stealing his birth right. You can sense the anger and bitterness he feels having to resort to privateering when he was once a respected officer in the King’s navy. I like how Ms DiPasqua develops Jules’s character from an arrogant noble who cares little for the lower classes and their suffering to a man who understands their grievances. He also has to come to terms with the hard truth about his father.
The chemistry between these two positively sizzles and I love Sabine’s attempts to convince Jules that she is experienced…
In as sultry a whisper as she could muster, she said, “I am well worth your time when I am . . . fully inspired.”
I like how Ms DiPasqua reveals how much alike Sabine and Jules are…both have lost a part of themselves because of the tragedy that had befallen their families and, through their mutual love, they help each other rediscover their true selves.
What can I say about the love scenes? HOLY SMOKE! HOT! HOT! HOT! I felt sure my iPad was going to melt! But the scenes are not just about titillation, they also reveal so much of Sabine and Jules’s conflicting emotions and vulnerabilities:
A soft alarming emotion whispered through her. A voice told her this felt right. Panicked, she suddenly needed— wanted— the physical pain to distract and distance herself from the intimacy, from the tender feelings welling inside her.
The little fraud had awakened not only his body, with the stunning passion that burned between them— but also his spirit. She’d actually drawn out his former self, dissolving his anger and bitterness with her wit, her smiles.
The secondary characters add vibrancy and depth to the story. I love Sabine’s eccentric theatrical friends and the scene at the inn, where they put their theatrical skills to good use, was funny; her cousins, Gerard and Robert, whose concern for Sabine is so touching; Robert, Jules’s second-in-command, who isn’t afraid to speak his mind.
“M-May I be frank again, my lord?”
“Well, of course, Raymond,” he responded tightly. “There seems to be no stopping you tonight.”
The story is full of action, drama and intrigue with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing and a truly diabolical villain.
Filled with fascinating characters, sizzling love scenes, plot twists and a passionate romance, A MIDNIGHT DANCE is Lila DiPasqua at her best.
REVIEW RATING: 5/5 STARS
SENSUALITY RATING: SIZZLING
Read November 2013
Fiery Tales series to date (click cover for more information):
-expected 1 December 2013
Rakes And Rascals 