Hello, and welcome back! Since it's a little too cool outside these days to sit and read, I've been curling up indoors now with my stack of October books, which might only last me till mid-month at the rate I've been reading. We'll see, I guess.

This time out, I have Sharon Page's latest, Hot Silk (Aphrodisia). Grace Hamilton thought she was meeting a man soon to be her husband two years ago when she met Lord Wesley alone. Little did she know he just wanted a tumble. But his rakish outlaw half-brother Devlin Sharpe comes to her rescue, and she beds him, too, just to make herself feel better about the night. Now, two years later, the highwayman Devlin stops her coach as she's traveling to meet her grandmother, and takes her instead to his own manor house of debauchery to try to make up for the last two years without her. Of course, being a criminal (no matter that he did some service for the country that makes the law look the other way when he's involved), he can't offer her the things a proper young lady should have, like marriage and forever. Instead, Devlin tempts her to detour from her plans with him. Along the way, they irritate several people enough to want to cause harm to them both, one Devlin's second-in-command, another one of his casual lovers, as well as his half-brother. Grace can't seem to make up her mind. First she wants to steal away from the rogue who's captured her (and her libido), then she wants to bed him. When he goes with her to meet her grandmother at a house party, he worms his way further into her heart, even though she knows nothing permanent can be between them. I got bored after a while, with all of Grace's dithering and wish-washy behavior. So what I'll say is this: if you're looking for a book with a historical setting that's filled with sex (and not all of it between the hero and heroine), and don't care that there isn't much plot to sustain the tale, this might be just the right thing for you. If you like characters who don't strain your credulity, skip it.

Until next time, happy reading!