OUTRAGEOUS

From Spencer, another single-word–titled, sexually explicit romance, this one with a 30-something earl and a feisty teenage heroine.

Godric Fleming, a boilerplate rake, is about to kidnap and compromise the wife of Gabriel Marlington, who he believes has caused the death of his entire family (nine of them). Gabe's sister Eva and her best friend, James, turn the tables and kidnap the earl instead. War hero Godric, 36, wakes up in a carriage with the 19-year-old heroine, “barely out of the schoolroom,” and in a show of force, turns the tables and regains the upper hand. Since Eva has now been compromised by spending multiple unchaperoned days with him, society dictates they will have to wed. Eva doesn’t want to marry; she wants to breed horses. Godric blames himself for the brutal deaths of his wife and child during the Napoleonic wars, and in the ongoing romance trend, he resolutely refuses to father a child: copulation yes, babies no. Thrown together on the road to Scotland for quick nuptials and often compelled to be inside a carriage or an inn, since it never seems to stop raining, they find their mutual lust growing. Spencer describes sex in educationally anatomical detail. Like her stepmother, the wise Mia, Eva clearly believes that young women should know what will give them pleasure. Eva’s father, the marquess, catches up with the happily deflowered Eva and tells her she need not marry if she doesn't want to. It’s her choice. Godric, who believes he can never give her the love and children she deserves, lies and says he doesn't want to wed Eva because her mother was mad and madness may run in the family. Then, as she works at her father’s home breeding horses, Eva finds that she too is breeding.

The hero switches roles between father and lover in this lackluster venture.