Review: The Courage to Love by Samantha Kane

Title: The Courage to Love
Author: Samantha Kane
Genre: historical erotic romance
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: Three of my favorite bloggers have squeed endlessly about this series, and after I read Teddy Pig’s excellent review of menage a trois in romantic erotica, I was compelled to actually move Samantha Kane farther up on my TBR list.
Synopsis: Kate Collier is still recovering from a vicious rape and trying to make a success
of her dress shop when Jason Randal and Anthony Richards return to London from the
Continent, intent on winning her. She’s known them for years, ever since they served
with her late husband in the Peninsula against Napoleon. She’d been in love with
them for almost that long. To discover they feel the same is a shock, but Kate isn’t
ready to turn her life back over to a man, or men.
Jason and Tony prove hard to resist, however, especially when their close friendship
blossoms into desire for each other as they make Kate’s body burn with passion. The
combination of their insatiable desire for her and their journey into a sexual relationship
with one another is irresistible to Kate.
A nightmare from her past tries to keep them apart, but the three long for a life
together in spite of society’s censure, and they will not be denied.

My Thoughts: Well, I haven’t quite been converted to fangirl status yet, but I did like this a lot. In fact, this book holds the dubious distinction of being the best menage story I have ever read. Take that however you want, since I’ve maybe read three other menage stories, and this was leagues and leagues above the others I’ve tried.

What I liked best about this book were the characters. I felt that all three of them were drawn with skill, and each was a real three-demensional person, not just the physical embodiment of the sexual characteristics that were needed to make the scene work.

Kate has had one hell of a tough road. She was forced to become the mistress of one man after another after her husband’s death, until she is brutally raped by the last protector she had… and, like, half the rest of the ton. (Yes, I said the ton. Ms. Kane has sold me on her warped, gay-friendly version of Regency England!) Anyway, after that experience, Kate is trying to heal her battered self-confidence and reclaim her femininity. She is reluctant to pursue what Jason and Tony have in mind for her, because she doesn’t want to get herself hurt again. As a heroine, she worked for me, because I could understand and sympathize with her motivations, but sometimes even for me she sometimes had a tendency to be overly shrill.

Jason is the passionate member of their little triad. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and he is alpha to the core. He is, however, not an asshole, and is in fact a great big teddy bear. I came to adore this man, and I totally saw why Tony and Kate would, too, because I would so very much not kick him out for eating crackers in bed. I also loved that he is a dominant, yet is as much surprised by that fact as everyone else is.

Tony is the diplomat, the calm and reasonable one, the one who is the master at manipulating people. And yet, even he comes to realize things about himself, namely that he’s not nearly so straight as he thought he was, and also he’s a submissive at heart.

The secondary characters are also drawn well. I wasn’t really expecting that, since in most of the erotic romance I’ve read, secondary characters are merely filler. But I loved watching Kate’s relationship with her niece, Veronica, who I understand will be a recurring character. I even thought there was a rather deft bit of characterization done on Jason’s snooty mother. Any of these people could have just been random stock characters, but they weren’t.

There really isn’t much of a plot to this book, which is fine. It was very character-driven, and every time I had a question about why the characters behaved a certain way, Ms. Kane answered it. There is a threat to the couple’s happiness, but it was pretty minimal and dealt with quickly.

I do have some quibbles, though. First of all, the writing style felt a tad clunky at times, and the characters spend a lot of time emoting rather than actually just, y’know, talking. I also thought the sequel-baiting wasn’t very well done. Most of the characters we are going to see in future books have neon signs over their heads reading, “I am sequel bait! Buy my book next!”
Also, there is one scene in which Veronica, Kate’s niece, ends up getting fingered by a random friend of Jason and Tony’s. It’s obvious that these two are going to become a couple later, because after their little encounter, they start bickering. Anyway, I mention the scene because Veronica’s not quite seventeen, and the scene might make some uncomfortable.

In conclusion, I did enjoy this book. It was nice visiting Ms. Kane’s version of Regency England, and I will definitely be back at some point for the sequels. Recommended, in spite of its flaws, which hopefully will disappear as Kane’s writing improves.