"An erotic Regency romance"

Gambling establishment owner James Stewart is used to women visiting him to offer money, jewels and their bodies to pay off the marker their husbands owe him. However, this visitor is different. Abigail Weston offers to pay James to teach her about sex. James' younger brother Michael informs him that Abigail is the younger half sister of Lord Jerold Marbleton, a prig.

Intrigued by a woman for the first time in years, James goes to the meeting place and demands she explain why she wants to hire him. Abigail tells him that her younger sister Caroline, who she raised, is on the husband market, but is fearful of sex. Abigail wants to talk to her sibling with knowledge, but knows nothing. James accepts the job of tutoring Abigail in every thing she wants to know about sex but is afraid to ask. As they fall in love, social and family pressures make a permanent relationship seem impossible.

LOVE LESSONS is an erotic Regency romance that is fun to read though the plot moves at a leisurely pace throughout the novel. The characters are a discernible group with easy to identify personalities. However, readers are required to have an initial leap of faith that Abigail would have the courage to ask James for lessons, but once that jump is made, Cheryl Holt's tale will remind readers of Susan Johnson's SEDUCTION IN MIND.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 13, 2001

Summary

Would her instructions in pleasure end if she taught him the meaning of love?

A resolute spinster at twenty-five, Abigail Weston is nonetheless determined to see her cherished younger sister wed to a man of Quality. But Abigail's lack of experience with the opposite sex means that she cannot allay her sister's fears about the marriage bed-unless she takes bold steps to learn what the intimacy between a man and a woman entails. Yet the one man in London qualified to teach her awakens temptation Abigail never anticipated-to experience each whispered pleasure for herself...

James Stevens-wealthy, dissolute, and wholeheartedly bored by London society-believes nothing can shock him. While Abigail's request for a verbal explanation of the pleasures of the flesh is mildly surprising, what amazes James is his powerful reaction to her innocence and lush beauty. A sexual dalliance between them may bring untold carnal bliss, but anything more would ruin Abigail forever. And for the first time in his life, James suspects that mere physical intimacy pales in the face of true love...