Seducer [Mass Market Paperback]

Part shipboard romance and part espionage, the Seducer had potential but fell flat mostly due to the heroine's inability to think rationally and her dialogue with the hero which always felt angry and strained.

Madeline Hartwell's father is a drunkard and gambler. Deeply in debt he sells his daughter to a loathsome Charleston gentleman, Geoffrey Townsend who has every intention of making her his mistress. When Madeline accompanies her father to dinner at the Townsends she is unaware of his plot. When told of her father's scheme, she is in shock but then acts almost criminally stupid by attending dinner with Townsend and staying in his house overnight. She seems genuinely surprised that he wants to bed her. They scuffle, she hits him, and she leaves Mr. Body in the bedroom with the candlestick and runs off to the wharf believing she has killed the man.

She finds a young woman on the docks and in a few short minutes becomes her chaperone. This lovely lady, Olivia Bradford is happy to have a friend and even invites her to her home to live in Virginia all within a day. When they are out to sea they are attacked by Captain Angel.

Captain Angel, aka Kane Graham, is a privateer for the colonists. He attacks the ship knowing there are guns aboard but is surprised to find two women aboard also. Madeline, in an effort to protect Olivia switches identities with her and claims to be the daughter of Admiral Bradford. Olivia is also the intended of Angel's nemesis, Hugh Davis. Angel has never met Olivia before so he is easily fooled. Madeline makes a bargain with Captain Angel, let Olivia accompany her to his ship and she will spend a night with him.

On Angel's ship, Madeline makes love with the Captain and fights constantly with him. To provoke Angel, Madeline raves about his enemy, Hugh Davis, and states he has a sterling character even though she has no idea what Olivia's fiance is like. There are barely any real emotions between these two except desire.

Honorable Angel releases his captives in Virginia and the two women head to Olivia's home. Madeline is immediately accepted as a member of the family. She cannot forget the Captain though and she is surprised to see him on Olivia's plantation introducing himself as Kane Graham. Again these two go through their ritualistic dance of I-desire-you-and-hate-you-too, although Madeline is worse than Kane at sharing her feelings. She is headstrong to the point of annoying but worse, she acts without thinking many times throughout this novel. Madeline's actions convinced me she did not like the hero so I had a difficult time believing she loved him. Kane was at times overbearing, he worried constantly about Madeline's safety. In the end he at least tried to make amends for his boorish behavior, Madeline just seemed determined to misread not only herself but also the actions and intentions of others.