Surrender of a Siren, A Lady of Persuasion :: Tessa Dare

Titles: Surrender of a Siren, A Lady of Persuasion

Author: Tessa Dare

Read: NYC

Format: Kindle (secret shame)

These two romances follow the excellent 'Goddess of the Hunt' to round out Tessa Dare's 'Siren trilogy'. Each novel focuses on the romantic pursuits of a secondary female character from the preceding title. Both are readable and fast, but neither has the oomph of the franchise's starter.

Surrender of a Siren opens with the runaway Sophia - disguised as lowly governess Jane - trying to buy passage onto a ship bound for Tortola. She has recently run away from what promised to be a suitable, but flat, marriage to Sir Toby Aldridge. However, once she realizes that her dowry was hers to inherit, marriage or no, she knows she can't marry for anything less than passion. So, she takes a wad of cash and flees to Tortola. On her voyage, she falls for the roguish and handsome Gray, the ship's owner and former privateer (that's fancy for pirate). Lust. Passion. Steam. Love. When they get to Tortola and Sophia's truth is uncovered, will Gray love her still, knowing that their relationship was founded on lies?

Of course! Duh.

Isabel (Bel) Grayson, Gray's young half-sister, is at the center of the trilogy's final - and weakest - installment. Unlike Sophia or Lucy, Isabel doesn't want to marry for love or passion. She's a do-gooder and wants to marry someone who will elevate her standing to 'Lady of Influence". Like all the ladies of London, Bel gets the hots for Toby (of pursued-by-Lucy and jilted-by-Sophia fame). He, too, is swept away by Bel's exotic, curvaceous beauty. When she learns he is able to run for Parliament, she agrees to marry him. They have an insatiable appetite for one another, but Bel has control issues or something. So, while poor, stupid Toby loves her, she won't allow herself to love him in return. Until she just kind of realizes she does and is also, oh-joyously, pregnant. Also in this novel: Toby's mom loves their neighbor and Lucy's galpal/personal physician falls for Bel's half-African, brother-from-another-mother Josiah. Too much!

All in all, I think the Siren trilogy hit its peak at the end of book one. I mean, Surrender of a Siren was fine, but I don't enthusiastically recommend it. I think for those who are not committed to The Genre (like me), a novel from this category has to be extra trashy or extra romantic or extra cheesy to be worthwhile. Surrender was not extra anything. But it was a little of all of those things; enough to still be embarrassing.

A Lady of Persuasion, I'd say, was squarely bad. It was steamy at times, but never satisfyingly romantic. And in her 'ambitious' subplots, I think Dare was making an effort to veer away from cheesy and towards legit, which I think was a mistake. Stick with what you know, you know what I mean? Another thing about 'A Lady' is that Bel was a terrible heroine. She is unsympathetically rigid and while Dare explains some of her character through a shallow exploration of her past, she remains unlikable. Bel could be a failure in character development, but could as easily be a failure in conception. And even with my limited experience with romances I know there is no greater recipe for falling flat than a poorly conceived principal.

Surrender of a Siren:

Readable, but just okay, 3 out of 5 stars

A Lady of Persuasion:

Yawnsville, 2 out of 5 stars