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The Edge of Desire (Bastion Club Novel) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephanie Laurens
Publisher: Avon
Category: Book
Buy New: $7.99
New (55) Used (71) from $0.01
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 22541
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0061246360
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780061246364
ASIN: 0061246360
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
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Product Description
They proved their bravery fighting for His Majesty's Secret Service and were rewarded with brides of great beauty and breeding. But one member of the Bastion Club has remained a bachelor . . . until now. "Christian, I need your help. There is no one else I can turn to . . . L." When Christian Allardyce, 6th Marquess of Dearne, reads those words, his world turns upside down. Lady Letitia Randall is a woman like no other, and the day he left her behind to fight for king and country was the most difficult of his life. He never forgot the feel of her lips against his, but never expects to see her again. Yet now she seeks his help, and Christian knows he will not resist her plea. Letitia believes that Christian abandoned her when she needed him most, and she hates to call on his aid. But to clear her brother's name, she has sworn to use every weapon at her command, even if it means seducing her ex-lover. Yet all the while, Christian is waging a war of his own—a campaign of pure pleasure and sweet revenge that will take them both beyond the edge of desire.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Hunt for a murderer August 26, 2008
Helen Hancox (Essex, England)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
What starts off as a rather slow book developed into something that was interesting and enjoyable, if flawed in places. Lady Leticia Randall's husband is murdered and her brother Justin is the only suspect - he was at the house that evening and has fled the scene, leaving behind bloodstained clothing at his rooms. Yet Leticia knows Justin wouldn't have killed Randall and so she goes for help to one man she can trust, her former lover, Christian Allardyce, the 6th Marquess of Deane.
Christian and Leticia's history is complicated. Everyone thought they would marry but twelve years before Christian went off to serve King and country and whilst he was away Leticia married Randall. They've barely seen each other since but Christian immediately comes to Leticia's aid.
As they begin to search for clues to the murder they discover that Leticia really didn't know a great deal about her husband. As his private affairs are slowly unpicked Leticia and Christian find that he is a man of many secrets and that it will take more expertise than they have to get to the bottom of them. At the same time as the search for the truth of Randall's murderer, Christian has to try to convince Leticia to trust him and to come to see that her place is by his side. But if they get too close to the truth of the murderer, might they not be risking their own safety?
This was a surprisingly long book and it moved quite slowly. The interest built step by step as the layers in the plot were brought to light. After the first few chapters the book settled into a rather uneasy format where we followed Christian and Leticia's murder investigation during the day and then spectated on their bedsport at night, then on to the next day. As the book made progress we spent more time on the investigation and less on the romance and this was rather an improvement. As far as the romance side went, it was understated in some ways as it was a rekindling of love between people who had been incredibly close in their past. The characterisation of both Christian and Leticia was sparse at times - Leticia has a temper, we learn, and Christian is very controlled and calm, but this reader never felt like she really got to know them.
Although I did enjoy this book I was rather dubious about some of the behaviour of the main characters in that historical context. The lead couple spending pretty much every night in bed in each others' houses, with Lady Randall a widow of just a few days and still theoretically in deep mourning, felt rather too unlikely. Where were all the servants in a Marquess's house who would normally have noticed this kind of thing. It appeared necessary for Laurens' romance side of the plot but it all felt a bit too modern for the Regency period.
Despite this the rest of the book was a good read and I didn't guess the murderer until the end when they were revealed. Although part of a series this book worked well on its own and set up the reader for the next and last in the series, featuring Royce Dalziel.
Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book Helen Hancox 2008
 The Edge of Desire September 4, 2008
M. Nix
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
When Christian Allardyce left to fight on the continent, he left confident that Letitia Vaux would wait for him until he returned to claim her as his own. However, during the twelve years Christian spent spying for the crown, Letitia married another man - an apparent love match, which shredded Christian's heart. But, when Letitia comes to Christian for help in solving her husband's murder to exonerate her brother Justin, both Letitia and Christian receive surprises that will change how they see each other and their shared history.
But will actually knowing what was behind each others actions be enough to understand each other or will it drive further a wedge between their hearts?
In this seventh installment of the Bastion Club series, The Edge of Desire is a good conclusion to this sensual and suspenseful romance series and it whets the appetite for more by finally giving a significant clue as to who Dalziel really is! This is the story of Christian and Letitia, characters that I found to follow the mold of the previous characters in the series while at the same time establishing some marked differences in their unique behaviors. For one, the explosive passion between Christian and Letitia becomes a contest for power within the relationship, but in the end, they end up seducing each other. Also, while making the environment more authentic, these characters show a more marked, yet unrepentant, class consciousness along with a sense of superiority that bleeds into their actions and reactions to other characters, a trait that had not been so strongly pervasive in the previous books in the series. Christian comes across as a charming, yet insensitive rogue, a quality that is brought home to him when he realizes that at the moment of Letitia's greatest need, he was unavailable. Letitia, however, does not endear herself to the reader with her tantrums, which are readily dismissed as the famous "Vaux temper," along with her manipulations within the "Ton," which is imbued with so much power and presence as to, almost, become a character on its own. That said, Stephanie Lauren has once again created a sensual story beyond compare with The Edge of Desire. It will wrap you up with every exchange and leave you eagerly awaiting for the hinted stories of interesting characters - like Dalziel. Pick up The Edge of Desire for a fun and entertaining read, perfect for a lazy day under the sun.
Sabella
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed
 Not bad, not great, a few oddities September 6, 2008
Jennifer8508 (USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've read every single Stephanie Laurens book, and I find myself asking a question I've asked 3 times now I think with other books I've reviewed (in general, not SL's). Did she write this? It wasn't *bad* per se, but it was... different. There weren't so much inaccuracies as there were... differences. I'm not even sure how to describe it. Dalziel was very out of character in many different scenes. Christian, rather than being the "ideal" hero of all of SL's books, was, for lack of a better phrase, extremely flawed. Again, this wasn't bad, just... different. The grand misunderstanding of the story was caused by Christian's thoughtless? stupid? careless? actions. ALL of the women knew who Dalziel was/is? And EVERYONE knew that his identity was going to be revealed but the male characters didn't? It just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Letitia married Randall for an understandable reason, I suppose, but if she KNEW about Dalziel from the beginning (as was implied) why did she not contact him to reach Christian? If she DIDN'T know about him at the time, that was not obvious in the story. I was led to believe that, as a Vaux, she knew a lot about it, and more than others.
I will say that the author did address the complaints that I had with the previous book (Where the Heart Leads). Granted I have no delusions that the changes were because of my suggestions. :) I refer to the "scattered wits" and "nerves" and all that jazz. Those were not common phrases in this book, for which I am thankful. But it does make me wonder. That, and I do not recall a single usage of the word "rapaciously" which is a VERY overused word in most, if not all, of SL's books. Although I can't complain about that, either.
Good things: It was a decent story. I liked the bow street runner -- he was funny. It was nice to see a couple of the other members. I was happy to learn more about Dalziel (although I'm kinda wondering why I can't recall ever hearing his family name. I would imagine that it was a pretty well known scene and would have been obvious to others, since the big scene took place at White's. It's not as if the men wouldn't know about it!). Anyway, I'm babbling.
This was also a very slow book. Not in a bad way, but slow. The story took a long time to develop and covered details of each and every day from the moment they started communicating until the end of the case. I also agree with other reviewers that their behavior was a bit strange with regards to their sexual relationship (pages and pages and pages of it, which is nothing new, but the sex -- at first especially -- wasn't all that hot, which is what I've come to expect from SL). In other books, the characters were mostly discreet. When Jack and Clarice were in London, he took great pains to meet privately with her at the hotel. They didn't just kiss on the front steps, or in the middle of the street. Granted Letitia was a widow, but Alicia was known as one but she and Tony didn't flaunt it.
I guess I'm just ambivalent about this, as I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it all that much.
Last point, since I read the eReader version (and this is not specific to this book, so it's probably unfair, but...). I dislike it when each chapter in the table of contents has the first sentence (or most of it) listed. It means that I have to make a conscious effort not to read the blurbs so that I don't have parts of the book given away. Something little and not in the author's control, but something that should be noted so that readers are aware of the issue if they're reading an eReader version.
 Is Shallow a Vaux Trait, as well? September 10, 2008
Summer Belle (East Coast, USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
There was nothing, exactly, wrong with the plot. Typical of Laurens, we have a murder, a heroine, and a hero. Secondary characters not as complete as I would like (i.e. the aunt was always off taking a nap, why was the younger sister living with her? why was the aunt living with her, for that matter?)
And yes, the heroine has a nasty, vile temper that we're just supposed to accept. After all, she accepts it. Even loves being known for her shrieking fits.
I think what bothered me the most was just how self centered and shallow Letitia is. She doesn't mind ton gossip - as long as she's controlling it. Her love of shrieking like a banshee makes her appear weak and manipulative. But it was her horror at the idea that she would be ruined if it ever came out that she had married as far beneath her as she had.
Um.. what?
Yes, romances of this era are fun for their glimpses into lives most of us could never live. And perhaps this is an American prejudice (Laurens is Australian, the books are set in England) but the ideal is to be judged by what we've done with what we're given. Rags to riches, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps mentality.
Her husband was not a nice man. But that didnt ruin her. She was almost openly living with Christian. But that didn't ruin her. She was involved in a romance mere hours after her husband's bloody murder, but that wouldnt ruin her.
No, she was worried that if the ton found out she'd married significantly outside of her class, she'd be ruined.
I think at that point, I simply stopped liking Letitia. Christian wasnt a bad hero, but as someone else commented, he was merely.. there.
If it was written by an unknown author, this might have deserved a 3 or 4 star review. But knowing Laurens has the capability of writing great books, lowers this to a 2 star review.
annoying for many reasons September 20, 2008
AmyZ (bloomfield mi)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Something about this book just bothered me. Whether it was the behavior and personality of Letita or the many times the author mentioned class differences or all the sex scenes that I just couldn't get into (very unusual for me!). I just don't know what it was but the book was to long for the story line and I just hope Laurens starts improving her story lines. Please I beg you have a heroine that is not perfectly annoying. Women are allowed to have imperfections-all her heroines seem to have the same characteristics-start showing some flaws.
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