Forbidden

Serena Riverton, desperate to escape another probably-horrid marriage arranged by her anything-but-loving brothers, seduces Lord Francis. She figures she can tolerate being his mistress - it won't be as bad as anything she endured with her sexually abusive husband. She gets what she wants but with a surprise - real pleasure and true love with the sensitive Francis who's as innocent as she is jaded. Great romance. Highly recommend it

I would never ever suspected that Francis who almost seemed boring in Arranged Marriage would turn out to be such a compelling character. He really stirred my blood - although he was a tad ackward about knowing what he needed to do to conquer Serena's fears in the bedroom - my goodness talk about an opposite paring - Serena had been a used woman in her first marriage and Francis was a virgin! What a complete opposite twist in a romance. This story just shows so much emotion and such a great love is eventually formed between these two characters. The way Beverely brings the other Rouges into the story - once again is beautiful - I love them all! But I am not sure Francis might be my favorite! READ these books in order though - you will enjoy them so much more!!

I don't usually write reviews but I just had to make a comment on this one. I read this book in 2 evenings. I couldn't put it down. The horse race had me laughing out loud at 2am in the morning, probably with the neighbors wondering what was going on. And the next day at work I was thinking about it and burst out laughing, and definitely had my coworking wondering what was wrong with me. Without giving much away, I thought it was a nice change of pase regarding the sexual state of Francis.

This has to be one of my favourite books and I wish it would be reprinted, as it's so expensive to buy a used copy. One for the keeper shelf, Forbidden is the fourth book in the Company of Rogues series. My librarian actually blushed when I checked it out of the library, as the large print hardback edition had Black Satin Romance emblazoned along the top, along with a photo of a very sexy looking blonde in a black corset. With the title, "Forbidden", I think she thought I was checking out erotica, lol (I loved that racy cover :))How to describe Forbidden? A Regency or a Regency Historical? In both categories it would be outstanding. I feel the tone and theme of this book fits in with the previous book in the series, Christmas Angel (another favourite), where two mature and decent adults find themselves in a marriage, not due to romantic love but other considerations. And then they have to get to know one another. If you dislike the rake character, there are no rakes in either Forbidden or Christmas Angel. In fact, Francis, the hero, in Forbidden, is a virgin (and Beverley makes this very believable). He is a sensitive, caring and gentle character who fell in love honourably with the heroine in An Arranged Marriage, remaining her friend when she needed him and never giving in to the temptation to seduce her away from her husband. At the beginning of Forbidden he is contemplating marriage to a nice, gentle and suitable girl who has been left on the shelf due to her shy nature and bad leg (Anne really is a lovely character who is jilted yet again in The Dragon's Bride, until she find her own hero finally in Hazard). Serena, the heroine, has much in common with the heroine of Christmas Angel. Both have been married previously, at too young an age, and have practical reasons for their second marriages of convenience. I personally prefer to read about more mature heroines with some life experience behind them. I found Serena to be as likeable as Francis. Unlike some other reviewers here, I didn't find the plot involving Francis's mother and her lover slapstick at all. It is necessary as a deus ex machina to set up the meeting between Francis and Serena, and as a secondary romance I found it very charming in its own right while breaking again romance stereotypes.

For me, FORBIDDEN ties with its immediate predecessor CHRISTMAS ANGEL for the position of second best book in the Company of Rogues series (my very favourite is AN UNWILLING BRIDE). Like all the Rogues novels, it's extremely original. The hero--Francis Haile, Lord Middlethorpe--is a virgin...highly unusual for a young Regency blood. The heroine, Serena Riverton, on the other hand, is only too experienced. She had been married--her husband died shortly before the beginning of the story--but she's no ordinary widow. She was married off at a young age to the depraved Sir Matthew "Randy" Riverton; over the eight years of their marriage she was essentially her husband's sex slave, or as he put it, his "well-trained wife" (by the way, I once read a description of FORBIDDEN which cautioned that some readers might be disturbed by the references to Serena's abusive first marriage. However, though Riverton _was_ a monster, there's nothing gratuitous about these references--unlike in some romances, where the heroines' sexual abuse by the villains _is_ presented in a titillating manner). Then, just months after widowhood frees Serena from the nightmare that was her first marriage, she learns that her loathsome brothers plan to sell her into marriage to a man like her late husband (or, if she refuses to cooperate, to sell her into a brothel). Her only option is to flee.She and Francis are thrown together when he stops to offer her a ride after overtaking her on a lonely country road as a violent storm is about to break. They're forced to take refuge in a farmhouse for the night-- posing as husband and wife, since their host is a religious zealot--and in desperation, Serena seduces Francis early the next morning while he's still half-asleep, hoping that he'll make her his mistress: she's despaired of finding any respectable sanctuary, and has concluded that her best hope lies in becoming a high-priced courtesan.Francis _is_ bewitched by her. But, he's also deeply suspicious of her. Moreover, he had been on the verge of proposing to a respectable young lady out of a sense of duty to marry suitably and carry on the family line; now those plans have been thrown into turmoil (incidentally, I really take exception the publisher's description of Anne Peckworth--the woman Francis was about to become betrothed to when he met Serena--as "dull". Though quiet and proper, she was actually a very nice young lady, and there was a genuine poignancy about her unrequited feelings for Francis. I think it's greatly to Jo Beverley's credit that she _didn't_ make Anne an insipid bore who Francis would feel no compunction over dropping--or who Serena would feel no guilt over supplanting). The story of how Serena and Francis' relationship develops from these inauspicious beginnings is a captivating one.