Satisfaction
Thea Devine
Kensington, May 2004, $14.00
ISBN: 0758204019

In 1894 Behramstead, England, Jancie Renbrook seeks vengeance for her father, deserted years earlier by his diamond mining partner Hugo Gailliard in South Africa. While the Gaillairds lived the life of wealth, her family survived on a government job pittance. After years of bedtime stories of revenge, Jancie arrives at Waybury House as a companion to Hugo's dying wife Olivia. She plans to cause a rift between Hugo and his son Lujan by flirting outrageously with the father and seducing the younger.

Lujan comes home to care for his beloved mother in her last days. He detests his father especially with his sexual predatory advances towards Jancie while his wife lies dying nearby. He wonders what game Jancie is playing though he finds he wants her. To her chagrin, she falls in love with the instrument of her revenge. With the sins of their sires in the way, anything between them beyond the death of his mother seems unachievable, but love has a way of accomplishing the impossible.

Erotic romance readers will find SATISFACTION with this exciting historical tale in which the betrayal by a rolling stone adventurer leads to demons suffered by their respective offspring. The story line is exciting though Hugo and Edmund show no redeeming qualities. Jancie and Lujan are a wonderful pairing in and out of bed and his brother adds a fine rivalry for the heroine's affection. A late sidebar intrigue not involving vengeance provides further doubts between the lovers, but that seem unnecessary as their sires have done a wonderful job of that already. When it comes to sex in the Victorian Age, few writers provide as divine a story as this author does.

Harriet Klausner