As it was, it was still very good, but it could have been.Seduction was a game. But beyond a certain point, I think they make me bilious.'If only the end of the book could have lived up to the rest of it, it would have been superb. those sorts of things are all very well in thier place. She should have realised that getting his way all his life would affect his brain and make him not altogether like other men.and 'Don't be noble, I beg you,' he said. She should have realized that a duke is used to getting his own way, to a certain degree common folk could scarcely imagine. She'd been a fool to imagine she could manage this man. In fact, it turns out that this made them extraordinarily well suited and it was the best part of the book - each trying to work out the other's motives, and come out ahead in some kind of delicious competition. 'Fascinating,' she said, 'You mean fascinating.' I liked how they were both portrayed as being far less than angels. 'Yet I am sorely tempted.' and on the next page: 'My dear duke, only look at the competition.' 'I would,' he said, 'but you're so aggravating, I can't tear my gaze away.'. Clevedon and Marcelline struck sparks off each other from their first meeting and this banter continues through most of their interactions, like here: 'It would be vulgar to strangle you on the dance floor ' he said. pedestrian and predictable at the end (and with insufficient detail of exactly how the plan worked for my liking also) in what had otherwise been an exceptional and refreshingly different book. I guess I was a little disappointed that some more creative way for Clevedon and Marcelline to be together hadn't been thought up - it felt a little. I've had mixed reactions to Loretta Chase's books some I've loved, some I've liked, some I've thought were kind of 'meh' - this one, for me, falls into somewhere between the like and love range - I was loving until the end when it fell just a little flat for me. Still, Marcelline is a mercenary and practical character - she has responsibilities to her sisters and to her young daughter and the difference in their stations make it impossible to make a match with the Duke herself anyway (even if her weren't already practically engaged to someone else), so she forces herself to think of business and puts her feelings firmly aside.

It is not her intention to fall for him herself, but that is what happens. Because the Duke will hold the purse-strings, Marcelline sets off to Paris to entice the Duke - purely for business purposes. When they hear that the Duke of Clevedon is due to return to England to marry, after 3 years on the Continent, the sisters hatch a plan to capture the business of the Duchess-to-be.

3.5 stars, rounded up.Marcelline Noirot is a modiste in England, in business with her 2 sisters.

Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase