Review: Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens

Format: Mass market pb
Pub Date: August 2011
Publisher: Avon
Length: 440 pages
FTC: Purchased myself

I am a hopeless Stephanie Laurens addict. Hope. Less. I own most of the original Bar Cynster in hardcover. A Secret Love is one of my all-time favorite books. But even I had to admit that the last series Stephanie Laurens put out was...not good. A few of the books in the Black Cobra Quartet were downright unreadable. At least for me. With this book, she's returning to her successful Cynster series and sounding more like her old self.

For the uninitiated, Stephanie Laurens has a very specific voice. Certain phrases crop up. And there are OMG-will-it-never-end? sex scenes. And horse metaphors. But the books are STILL addictive.



Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue takes us back to the Cynster family via the younger female cousins. Heather Cynster is one of the younger sisters of Gabriel and Lucifer. [Here is where I cheat and go to SL's website to peek at her family tree.] She's all grown up and on the hunt for a hero. Enter the patronizing Viscount Breckenridge, whose attempts to shield her from scandalous happenings at a very naughty party results in her being kidnapped and him being forced into charging to the rescue.

If you like the older books by Stephanie Laurens, you will probably enjoy this one. It's not as good, or as tightly plotted as those early books, but it has the same vibe. It doesn't have the same emotional intensity, but it does have the same level of sensuality you'd expect from this author. The kidnapping plot is a bit...odd. The lack of obvious peril mutes the tension a bit. And there's a return of the Lady of the Vale woo woo stuff that first appeared (then promptly disappeared) in Scandal's Bride .

On a personal reading note, I was unable to find her standard phrase, "her lungs seized." I was quite disappointed by that, as it's kind of like an Easter egg hunt. I spent the whole book looking for that phrase. Dang it. 


My Grade: B-

The Blurb:

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Miss Heather Cynster . . . but not before she encounters kidnappers, danger, and a daring rescue at the hands of Viscount Breckenridge 

Determined to hunt down her very own hero, one who will sweep her off her feet and into wedded bliss, and despairing of finding him in London’s staid ballrooms, Heather Cynster steps out of her safe world and boldly attends a racy soiree. 

But her promising hunt is ruined by the supremely interfering Viscount Breckenridge, who whisks her out of scandal—and straight into danger, when a mysterious enemy seizes her, bundles her into a coach, and conveys her out of London. 

Now it’s up to the notorious Breckenridge to prove himself the hero she’s been searching for all along . . .