Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane Book 1)

I liked this one. It is explicit so if sexual content bothers the reader, this one should be skipped. This is definitely adult reading. The emotional level is far above many romances.Our heroine is a widow who helps with the family charity - a foundling home. The home is set in St. Giles, a dangerous slum. The hero is a lord who is seeking his mistress' murderer. He is a cold and distant fellow, and he cannot bear to be touched by another human being. His sexual proclivities are considered odd.The heroine has her own demons.Her knowledge of the slum make her the prefect guide for the hero. The couple find there is more to their relationship than the physical.The story also involved the heroine's brothers and sister. The sister risks everything for her husband. The older brothers cannot seem to get along, and the youngest is slowly dying under the weight of running the founding home.The book covers many emotions - romance that is dark, unsettling, hopeful and hopeless. I shall look for the next book in this series.

"Just because love isn't expressed doesn't mean it isn't felt"~~Lady CaireLord Caire-- Lazarus (I love his name) is on a hunt for the man who murdered his mistress. It takes him to St. Giles, an ugly part of London where criminals pretty much rule the streets after dark. He follows Temperance Dews home and makes her an offer she can't refuse if she acts as his guide.Temperance Dews and her brother, Winter, along with the help of Nell, the maid, and Polly, the wet nurse, run a home for foundlings and orphans up to age nine when they can be apprenticed. They've run onto hard times and are having trouble feeding the children and making rent. They've been threatened with eviction so when Lord Caire offers up money that's enough to get them out of arrears and even ahead, Temperance is on the job.Together they travel the streets after dark, looking for clues as to who the murderer is. Meanwhile, they are discovering things about each other and not all of them are good. She's hiding something while his secret of a certain sexual proclivity is revealed to her in a most interesting way. She tries to turn away. She's already guilt-ridden about her husband dying and is pretty much punishing herself over it.Lord Caire is broken. He feels physical pain any time somebody touches him. He's learned to control it, but he doesn't like it when people touch him. He thinks nobody can ever love him and is okay with it since he doesn't love anybody anyway. He pays for pleasure so he can have it when he wants it and do it his way. No strings. No emotion. It's a business deal and everybody walks away happy.There's another story going on at the same time. Temperance's sister, Silence (odd name but okay) is married to a sea captain. William, her husband's cargo was stolen and she goes to great lengths to get it back. It's not a huge part of the story, but its there and worth mentioning.I like how this book was put together. In addition to the story between Temperance and Lazarus and the secondary story of Silence and William, each chapter has a bit of a story before it starts with a woman named Meg and a king who wants to know what love is. I liked it a lot. It sort of dropped a hint in what was to come in the chapter. Putting that little tidbit before the chapter started was clever.I loved the characters I was supposed to love. I disliked the characters that were intended to be disliked. The plot was tight, the romance was hot, and the story was quick. Love and acceptance are key elements.I want to say this in the event that another writer happens to see this review. I love long hair on my heroes. Lazarus had long, silver hair that he kept tied back and didn't wear a wig like most of the other men did in the book. When I read about a guy who has long hair, I think it makes him sexier and gives him a good vibe. I wish more authors would give their heroes that look.I also want to point out something. This book predates The 50 Shades of Grey. While I read this book, I couldn't help but compare Lazarus Huntington (Lord Caire) to Christian Grey. Lazarus may share the not touching part with Christian, but he is nowhere the control freak that Christian is.Fantastic book and I will be reading the second book in the series.

4 starsThis was a very good story. I liked both Lazarus and Temperance and enjoyed seeing them get together. I tagged this as light BDSM because there's some bondage and blindfolds involved but that's as deep as things go.Temperance is a widow who now runs a home for orphaned children with her brother, Winter. The home and adjoining school were started by their father and Winter took it over when he died. Temperance helped out but when he husband died, her entire focus became the home. They used to have a rich patron that gave money to the home that kept it running but since he died, the money has dried up and the home is in danger of being shut down.Lazarus is a Lord in the aristocracy of England. He was raised by parents that showed him no love and as an adult, Lazarus has trouble feeling anything. The one person he did love was his little sister and she died at a young age. Lazarus has issues that have made him seek certain proclivities in the bedroom that most people see as unnatural and because of this, Lazarus has made sure his bed partners are paid mistresses and the like.Lazarus had a mistress that had been with him for 3 years but was killed a couple months before the beginning of the story. He didn't love her but felt the need to find her murderer anyways. Lazarus began lurking around St. Giles (a very bad part of London) to try to get info on who the murderer might be when he found Temperance. Something about her attracted Lazarus and since she knows a lot about the area he needs help getting around, he decides to hire her as a guide. Temperance is rather shocked when a member of the aristocracy shows up, wanting to make a deal with her. She's leery about his intentions but since the home is over a month behind in rent, she agrees to help Lazarus in exchange for some money to help out with the more urgent bills as well as help finding a new patron that would help support the home in the future.Unfortunately, Winter finds out about her arrangement with Lazarus and tells her other 2 brothers so all 3 of them can give her a hard time about it. However, since they have no good ideas on how to get the money for the home, they have to deal with her association with Lazarus. Temperance and Lazarus start working together and it soon becomes clear that they have a strong attraction to each other. Lazarus isn't sure about it but finds himself unable to stay away, wanting to see Temperance for more reasons than their arrangement or their physical attraction. Temperance finds that the more time she spends with Lazarus, the more she wants to spend with him, regardless of the disapproval and disappointment Winter shows over her situation. Lazarus and Temperance seek out the murder while they become closer and try to deal with their personal issues that seem determined to get in the way. Thankfully, Lazarus and Temperance realize that they're best together and they get past their issues (and through some drama and danger) to end the story starting a well deserved HEA together.This was a very enjoyable story. I liked Temperance and thought she was a good heroine. She was smart and sensible while still being human (in a good way). Lazarus was a good hero. TBH, I thought that he'd be more resistant to his feelings for Temperance but he did well at accepting things and being willing to move forward. Overall, the story was very good and it was interesting enough that I was engaged in the story through to the end. I'd recommend this story. :)* note - I listened to the audio version of this story and the narrator did a very good job. FYI, the last 16 min of the audio is a preview for the next book.

Less a wicked intention, rather a stupid intention to waste even 10p on this old baloney.In 18th Century Kiev, poor lice-ridden Anya Bandanya meets handsome but sclerotic Count Lepid Tepid IX in the underground sewers trying to unleash a rat plague on an unsuspecting Ukrainya."A plague on your house, you wax-booted, urine-soaked, moustachio'd old soldier!" exclaims Anya at some point, as she simultaneously poisons another mistaken mouse with Ebola or something topical beginning with the letter 'c', using nothing but her bare teeth and bad breath.That was the only true literary highlight in oh, hundreds of pages.Avoid like a plagued rat, indeed.

I have read a number of Elizabeth Hoyt's books before and particularly like her "Legend of the Four Soldiers" series, in my opinion Wicked Intentions is just as good if not better than that series. The character's, unlike in many historical romances are not perfect they have fault and problems, which together they over-come. The book is set in St. Giles one of london's slum, it centres around the characters of Temperance and Lord Caire , Temperance runs a home for orphans, set up by her dead father, Lord Caire asks her for help in searching for the murderer of his dead mistress.The book has many twists and turns and the reader is given an insight into the lives of Temperance's family and also the Ton which Lord Caire is a member. Hoyt's characters are fleshed out and by the end of the book I was really routing for the two main characters, you are also given a tantalising hint at the characters who I hope will have there own books.I would highly recommend this book if you have liked any of her previous books or are a fan of Mary Balogh or Lisa Kleypas.

Enjoyable and intriguing read. Good characters and an interesting plotline. Temperance and Lazarus both deserving a HAE. Lots of other potential couples, so happy to keep reading.

As soon as I read this, book number 1 I bought the whole series. Each book is connected by character, although each book does stand alone and tells its own story. I read them one after the other - great. Typical historical romance escapism - highly unlikely in reality (I should think) but great entertainment! I believe there is another book in the pipeline for this series and I will be buying it when it is available.

It's been a while that I have been interested enough in a book of this genre to read it the whole way through. Elizabeth Hoyt has done a good job with this one, good introduction of secondary characters and nice to see the heroines are not the box standard virgins but more mature women. I didn't buy into the motive of the murderer, it was the weakest part of the book but otherwise an entertaining read.