Review: Dangerous Seduction by Zoë Archer

Dangerous Seduction by Zoe ArcherFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, paperback, mass market paperback
Genre: historical romance
Series: Nemesis, Unlimited, #2
Length: 385 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Date Released: November 26, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Alyce Carr has no time for the strange man in her little Cornwall village, no matter how breathtakingly handsome he is. Life in Trewyn doesn’t allow for much fun—the managers of the copper mine barely provide the miners and their families with enough food. Outsiders are suspect and flirts are unimaginable, but Simon Sharpe is as keen as his name…and Alyce can’t ignore him for long.

As the founder of Nemesis, Unlimited, Simon Addison-Shawe is well accustomed to disguise and deceit. Yet he’s not prepared for Alyce’s dogged defense of her people and the injustices the copper mine has dealt them. With Alyce’s help he can change the fate of an entire town, and convincing her to join him is only part of the thrill. Together, they ignite a desire in each other much too powerful to deny. But at what cost?

My Review:

I want more Alyce. Probably Simon agrees with me, but the heroine of Dangerous Seduction, Alyce Carr, was awesome on so many levels I don’t know where to begin.

Not that the hero was bad, either, but Simon is merely terrific, where Alyce is practically a superheroine.

Someone in the remote Cornish mining village of Trewyn has written an anonymous letter to Nemesis, Unlimited outlining all of the many and varied abuses visited on the community by the owners of the Wheal Prosperity mine. Yes, the name comes across as supremely ironic, because the mineworkers are anything but prosperous.

Working for Wheal Prosperity has become the closest equivalent to chattel slavery available in the U.K. The company pays only in scrip, which is only usable at the company store. Which of course inflates its prices and sells spoiled goods. The owners borrowed the whole concept from the American West, and it was just as horrible there, too.

The scrip is not transferable into cash. No one can ever save up any money to get away, because there is no real money. And Trewyn is 10 miles from the nearest town, so there’s nowhere to go, and no one to notice.

Until Nemesis brings Simon to their door. Simon Addison-Shawe may be an aristocrat, but that’s not what this job needs. So Simon fakes his way in as a machinist. The mine needs engineers to keep the pumps working, and Simon gets the job. On his very first day, he meets Alyce Carr, a woman from as different a background as possible from the drawing rooms his family inhabits.

Bal maidens in traditional protective clothing, 1890
Bal maidens in traditional protective clothing, 1890

Alyce is a bal-maiden. She’s one of the women who swing a heavy hammer to break up the chunks of ore into small enough pieces to be usable. She’s physically strong, and mentally self-reliant. Also completely defiant, when Simon meets her, she’s arguing with the managers about the rancid butter in the store.

Alyce hasn’t been cowed or bowed by conditions at the mine since the new ownership took over ten years ago. She’s an unacknowledged leader of the community, but she doesn’t know it. Only Simon sees how people look to her to settle their disputes and answer their concerns.

He needs an ally who knows the community. He’s fascinated by this woman who doesn’t hide her strength of mind or body, unlike all the useless twits he meets in society.

Alyce doesn’t trust this stranger who starts out defying the corrupt constabulary, and invites himself home to dinner with her and her brother and sister-in-law. When Simon reveals what he’s really up to, she’s more distrustful, and more intrigued by the possibility of finally righting the village’s wrongs.

Alyce is all in with Simon’s plans to outfox the mine owners, to the point of risking her life, but she’s less certain of risking her heart to a man who can’t stay in the place she feels bound. And Simon loves Alyce, but he’s been taught that duty, in his case his duty with Nemesis, comes before everything he might want.

Escape Rating A: The beginning is just a tiny bit slow, because absolutely everything in Trewyn is so grim that it weighs the story down. Once Simon and Alyce start taking the fight to the managers (the butter run is marvelous) the story becomes an absolute page-turner.

Simon finds himself by becoming a mining machinist. Not because Trewyn is a great place to live (it isn’t) but because he doesn’t just immerse himself in his role, but he expands himself into it. Everyone in Trewyn is living their life as best as they can, and in spite of the hardships, there is a tremendous amount of love and friendship. Simon the machinist is able to be closer to his true self, playing a part, than he is in the drawing rooms and sporting clubs that are supposed to be his natural habitat.

Alyce finds herself, too. Not just because she has found a man strong enough in himself to love her as she is, and not need her to pretend to be less, but also because Simon makes her stretch to reach new ideas and new goals. He needs a true partner, and she’s always needed someone who wanted everything she had to give. Nemesis needs everything and more, if she’s to help defraud the owners and defend the town.

Their love story absolutely glows. Both of them have always put duty and responsibility before anything else, and they believe that what they have found together is something that they can’t keep, but can’t resist while it lasts, no matter how much it’s going to hurt.

They work hard for their HEA, and it’s awesome.

wicked temptation by zoe archerI have enjoyed the entire Nemesis, Unlimited series (Sweet Revenge, reviewed here and Winter’s Heat, here) but I adored Dangerous Seduction so much, that I couldn’t wait to dive into the next book in the series, Wicked Temptation. I hope I can tempt you to take a look at my joint review with E_Bookpushers today over at The Book Pushers.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Winter’s Heat by Zoe Archer

Winter's Heat by Zoe ArcherFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical romance
Series: Nemesis, Unlimited, #1.5
Length: 100 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Date Released: October 22, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

An auxiliary Nemesis agent and a former client go undercover as servants at a country estate during the Christmas season to expose corruption among London society’s powerful elite. Michael and Ada never thought they would again be working side by side in the pursuit of justice. Now that they’re on a case together, the attraction they had once shared flares to life, making a dangerous assignment even more unpredictable. Can they take the heat?

My Review:

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a Christmas book. Think of it as icy-hot. The descriptions of the weather in England in December should make you feel a little bit cooler as the weather outside moves to summer.

And the romance is more than enough to make any reader think very warm thoughts!

Winter’s Heat is a bit of a second-chance-at-love story, mixed with shades of both Downton Abbey and Leverage.

Sweet Revenge by Zoë ArcherThe explanation of what Nemesis Unlimited does is contained in book 1 in this series, Sweet Revenge (reviewed here). They provide justice for people who can’t otherwise get it from the courts. A lot of their clientele comes from the “service grapevine”. In Winter’s Heat, the case is to find a way to make a nasty pair of aristocrats pay for the way they turned an orphanage into a children’s workhouse, and then managed to slither out of any criminal charges with all the profits.

To provide them with their just desserts, Nemesis sends out two agents with experience in service in a country house (shades of Downton) to infiltrate the upper crust family Christmas. Everyone is certain that there is a way to make them pay, but it will need investigation and courage to find it.

The agents don’t just have experience in service, they have experience with each other. Six months previous, Ada was the servant who sent in an anonymous request to Nemesis in return for justice for a friend. And Michael was the agent sent to help her. They weren’t supposed to fall for each other. And when they did, Michael wasn’t supposed to disappear without a trace for six months.

She thinks that he was just using her as a dalliance. He knows he was stuck on a mission where revealing his whereabouts might have meant his life. But that doesn’t erase Ada’s feelings of abandonment.

She does not fall into his arms when he shows up as the agent in charge of her new assignment. Not even after he manages to tell her where he’s been. Michael has a lot of fences to mend.

And they have a case to crack. Ada is working for Nemesis on just this one case, to pay them back for the help they gave her friend. But the more involved she gets with the investigation, the more she realizes that righting wrongs and ferreting out evil is exactly what she was meant to do–with or without Michael’s assistance.

But working together on the case, and sneaking around just to communicate, adds yet another layer to their working partnership, and their desire for each other.

Escape Rating B: Winter’s Heat is a short and sweet addition to the Nemesis, Unlimited series. The story is focused on Michael and Ada’s investigation, rather than on the workings of Nemesis in general. The two of them are undercover at a large country house, and do all the investigating together. They’re pretty cut off from any of the resources of the agency.

Complicating matters are both their prior relationship and that they are operating undercover as part of a group of temporary hires in service. The work rules don’t allow them to be caught fraternizing, so even a simple private conversation is fraught with tension. Their prior relationship only makes things more difficult; Ada wants to help with the case, but she isn’t sure that she can trust Michael, no matter how much she still might be attracted to him.

One of the great things about the way that their relationship evolves is that Michael lets Ada discover just how capable she is; he makes some vague attempts at protecting her, but gives those up relatively quickly. He needs her as a full-fledged partner, and lets her grow into her role. Even at the beginning, he explains that he is the agent in charge because he is more experienced, not because she isn’t capable. As she definitely proves herself to be.

Their relationship is one of significant romantic and sexual tension, strung out until they snap. They can’t be caught, and yet they can’t stop. It’s delicious.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Sweet Revenge by Zoë Archer

Sweet Revenge by Zoë ArcherFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Historical romance
Series: Nemesis, Unlimited, #1
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Date Released: June 4, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

When Jack Dalton escapes from Dunmoor Prison, he has only one thing in mind—finding the nobleman who murdered his sister and making him pay. But when he reaches the inn where the Lord Rockley is rumored to be staying, three well-dressed strangers are there to meet him instead. And the pretty blonde is aiming a pistol right at his head …

Joining Nemesis, Unlimited has made Eva Warrick much more than the well-mannered lady she appears to be—one who can shoot, fight, and outsmart any man in the quest to right the injustices so often suffered by the innocent. She’s not afraid of the burly escaped convict, but she is startled by their shared attraction. She and her partners need Jack’s help to get to Rockley, but Eva finds she wants Jack for scandalous reasons all her own…

My Review:

I love Zoë Archer, but I had this on my ereader and lost track of the entire series. Then I volunteered to be part of a joint review of the third book in the series at The Book Pushers, thinking that I would be inspired to read books 1 and 2. (Also book 1.5)

Sweet Revenge is the first book in Archer’s Nemesis, Unlimited series, and it showcases her trademark storytelling of a strong woman and a desperate man dealing with adventurous and dangerous times.

One of the things I enjoy about her historical romances is that she gets close enough to our time that all the roles are recognizable, and that there is some technology for making things reasonable, and that her female characters have plenty of fight in them to make sure that they are recognized as being every bit as capable as their male colleagues, even though that equality wasn’t common in society.

But then, her heroines usually aren’t operating in “polite” society, and that is certainly the case with Eva Warrick and Nemesis, Unlimited.

First, think of Nemesis, Unlimited as a Victorian-era Leverage. Just like the crew in the late TV show, Nemesis, Unlimited exists to provide justice for average people against the rich, privileged and titled who think they are (and sometimes really are) above the rule of law.

So this first story has to both introduce the concept, and provide an avenue for the romance of the main characters, while obtaining a certain kind of justice for a class of people who otherwise have no recourse.

Lord Rockley is the epitome of the evil aristocracy who can buy, threaten or cajole their way out of any trouble, even murder, as long as he doesn’t prey on his own class. Rockley’s speciality is sadistic sex with women who will lose their reputation if they complain about his treatment of them.

Jack Dalton used to be one of Rockley’s bodyguards, until Rockley killed Dalton’s sister. To add the proverbial insult to the all-too-real injury, Rockley framed Dalton for theft and murder to get him out of the way. Dalton has only one goal, revenge on Rockley.

Nemesis, Unlimited also wants Rockley’s head for his threats and abuse against their current client. So when Dalton escapes from prison, with a little help from Nemesis, the two join forces. Dalton knows enough about Rockley to help Nemesis ensnare him in a little plot of their own. They just have to convince Dalton that setting Rockley up for a treason conviction is better than murdering him with his bare hands.

It’s Eva Warrick who is finally able to convince Dalton that revenge is a dish best served cold by believing that he is more than just a dumb bruiser. Meanwhile Dalton convinces Eva that she can be as hot as she wants with him, and still be the Nemesis agent that she needs to be.

It’s amazing how sexy a lot of mutual respect can lead to.

Escape Rating B: The plot against Rockley was a bit convoluted, but the introduction of this band of vengeance minded operatives was absolutely tons of fun. And it’s a great idea for a series, because there was so much of a chasm between conditions for the rich and treatment for the rest. Ordinary people need Nemesis to step in for them.

Both Eva and Dalton are interesting characters because they are capable of so much more than they believe themselves to be. Jack has always seen himself as a stupid thug, and Eva has cut off any possibility of a personal life because she believes she can’t tell anyone about her secret life in Nemesis.

Eva believes correctly that Jack is actually a smart man, and she values him for his brains as well as his brawn (also his body, but that’s not how she wins him). She respects his intelligence, and he finally comes to respect himself for it. Likewise, Jack not only already knows Eva’s secret life, but proves over and over again that he can both be trusted with it and that he understands her need to continue with Nemesis.

It’s too bad that they have to nearly give up on each other before they figure out that what they feel is really love, on both sides. But if you enjoyed Archer’s Blades of the Rose series, you’ll love Nemesis.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.