ARC Review: Radiant Desire (A Handmaid's Seduction) by Inara Scott

Title: Radiant Desire (A Handmaid’s Seduction)

Author: Inara Scott

Release Date: October 4, 2011     COMING SOON!

Publisher: Entangled Publishing

Category: Contemporary Fantasy Romance

Type: Paperback

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Book Blurb:

The object of every man’s fantasy just lost her wings…

Kaia Verde is one of the four Faerie Handmaids of Zafira, Queen of the Fey. To redress an ancient wrong done to Zafira by a human king, the Handmaids make sport of mortal men, seducing and humiliating them. When Kaia sets out to seduce Garrett Jameson, but ends up being the one surrendering to pleasure, Zafira is furious. Kaia’s punishment is simple: make Garrett fall in love with her by the summer solstice, then break his heart, or face eternity without her wings—or her soul. To make the task harder, Zafira tells Kaia she cannot use her faerie magic or charm to lure Garrett into her bed.

…and now she’s losing her heart…

Kaia thinks her task will be relatively easy—as a faerie, she understands lust, and can love be much different? But once she is living among the humans, Kaia discovers the race she once disparaged is far more complex and beautiful than she imagined. She learns before she can break Garrett’s heart, she must find a way to heal it. And eventually, discovers that losing her wings may be a far easier price to pay than losing her heart.

Book Excerpt:

Garrett couldn’t remember ever having met a woman like Kaia Verde. She said things women weren’t supposed to say, was blatantly seductive without being insipid, and seemed to have absolutely no compunction about her desire to get him into bed. Yet when he forced her to back off on the seduction, he found her mind to be as intriguing as her body. She was literate and intelligent. As the evening progressed, their conversation meandered from lamenting the loss of the wetlands in the Everglades to his favorite topic—music. She must have had some sort of formal training, because she knew musical theory well enough to pick apart the merits of the various forms and argue about them with unexpected passion. She loved classical and Celtic music, while he was a fan of jazz and blues. Somehow, she’d even managed to worm out of him his childhood fantasy of being the next Wynton Marsalis, and that was a memory he hadn’t dredged up for decades.

Meanwhile, he knew little more about her than when they first met. He didn’t know where she lived, who she worked for, or even the name of the convention she was supposedly in town to attend. All he knew was that she was smart, funny, and utterly unpredictable. It was a heady combination.

They’d finished one bottle of wine and started another. If she was a prostitute, she was a damn good one. Good enough that maybe he didn’t even mind that she’d probably been spinning lies at him all night long.

As the wine slid through his veins, Garrett watched as Kaia leaned across the table and began to stroke his arm, followed with tiny kisses on his palm. This should have been embarrassing—he’d never been one for public displays of affection. All his good intentions fizzled away under her touch. When he felt her hand under the table, on his knee and then his thigh, he thought he might have died and gone to heaven.

And when she murmured, “Isn’t it time to go somewhere more private?” he couldn’t think of a reason to say no.

Favorite Quote:

“When people come to the "flower shop, you know what they want to say to each other? Two things: I’m sorry, and I love you. That’s it. They say it different ways and with different words, but it comes down to the same thing each time. So I think that’s what it means to be human. I think it means taking chances and risking getting hurt. I think it means loving and forgiving.”

Review:

Radiant Desire is the first of Inara Scott’s books that I have had the pleasure to read. I was initially captivated by the fan-damn-tastic cover of the book. Admittedly, I am a sucker for amazing covers. **grins**

This book was an absolute pleasure and I could not put it down. It kept me up into the wee hours of the night when I should have been sleeping. I was captivated from the start of this amazing novel. I have always loved fantasy books. Each allows us to become immersed in characters that we would otherwise leave in the recesses of our minds, not really giving overmuch thought to. I have always loved the idea of faeries; especially after reading Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The playfulness and meddling of the celestial beings was extremely entertaining. Scott successfully brings similar qualities to some of the characters in this book.

I enjoyed that the characters each went through a process to find their happiness. Not only did Caia and Garrett have to work through misguided assumptions that hindered the ability for growth and acceptance, the secondary and supporting characters also went through their own eye-opening experiences at differing times throughout the story. This story has depth beyond the initial feelings generally conveyed in novels. Ideals that some had lived by were challenged. Beliefs were tested. Ultimately each individual had to personally decide their own path: a decision that weighted heavily with happiness and consequences lurking regardless of the chosen course.

What I didn’t like, though somewhat trivial in comparison to the rest of the story, is the lack of closure for Portia. I felt there could have been a bit more added to the Aiden revelation. I appreciated her description in the final chapter, but with the disclosure of her motivation, I felt as if she could have been afforded just a smidge more happiness.

I am assuming that A Handmaid’s Seduction will likely have subsequent installments with each of Caia’s sisters getting their own story. The possibilities are endless with unfulfilled contracts yet to be paid. But you will have to read the story to fully understand the implications of such a statement. Naturally, the idea of a series is just a supposition based on the contents of the final chapter, but an assumption I would dearly love to see manifest. Scott has a talent for spellbinding her readers and keeping them hooked within a story that flows from beginning to end. My time was well spent with Radiant Desire.

(ARC e-book received from @inarascott for review)