Seducing an Angel is the fourth book in the Huxtable family series and it completes the story of the immediate family. The other books in the series are: First Comes Marriage (the middle sister Vanessa's story), Then comes Seduction (the youngest sister, Katherine's tale) and At Last Comes Love (which features the eldest sister Margaret). In this novel we watch Stephen find love in typical Huxtable fashion - unconventionally.

Stephen is the much beloved youngest brother of the family. When...

Seducing an Angel is the fourth book in the Huxtable family series and it completes the story of the immediate family. The other books in the series are: First Comes Marriage (the middle sister Vanessa's story), Then comes Seduction (the youngest sister, Katherine's tale) and At Last Comes Love (which features the eldest sister Margaret). In this novel we watch Stephen find love in typical Huxtable fashion - unconventionally.

Stephen is the much beloved youngest brother of the family. When he was little more than a boy he came into an unexpected inheritance becoming the Earl of Merton. Until that time Stephen had lived a quiet life in the country with his sisters. (His parents passed away when he was quite young.) Stephen has always been a bright soul, the sort people are drawn to and do not begrudge good fortune. In the previous books we watch as he progresses from sweet young lad to protective man/child to respectable gentleman. Stephen is also beautiful, with golden hair, sparkling blue eyes and a slender but well proportioned build. Stephen is in a word, Angelic. We all want Angels in our lives, but perhaps not as the leading man in our historical fiction. I was terribly afraid that this was going to be a dull piece with a wimpy put-upon male lead and a harpy prospective bride. I should have trusted Ms. Balogh to find nuance in perfection.

Cassandra Belmont, the widowed Lady Paget is, like Stephen, ridiculously attractive. She has titan red hair, slanted green eyes and the body of Venus. She is newly arrived in town, having fled here with her dependents (which include a maimed mutt) after being almost forcibly ejected from her late husbands estate. Lady Paget is in dire straits, she has no money, she has no skills, she has three people (and the mutt) who are dependant on her for their very lives and . . . she is reputed to be an ax murderer. So what is a woman to do?

Cassandra spots Stephen on her very first outing in town. His angelic continence appeals to her and she decides to make a conquest of him. Not to marry, she has ample reasons from past experience to avoid that state, but rather to take as her protector. She plans and executes her seduction and succeeds in trapping Stephen in a relationship neither of them seems to want. Stephen feels exploited and betrayed by her duplicity and Cassandra is frightened by his awareness and apparent honor. Each has to find a way to look behind the others facade. Stephen is much more than his angelic exterior and Cassandra is not at all the dissolute siren she pretends.

This is the best book in the Huxtable series. The characters are interesting and satisfyingly complex, the story moves along at a brisk pace and there are a couple of secondary plot lines that add spice to the whole. Ms. Balogh is without peer in this genre and this is one of her better books.

Good historical romance read/series!
I had read some Mary Balogh in the past and did like her work. When I was looking for new books or a series to read while I was traveling this series popped up on my recommended list. I’m glad it did! This was a good historical romance read. Were there parts that were predictable?…maybe, but that’s not a big deal to me, as I think it’s hard to have a completely “new” concept in historical romance now days.

Good historical romance read/series!
I had read some Mary Balogh in the past and did like her work. When I was looking for new books or a series to read while I was traveling this series popped up on my recommended list. I’m glad it did! This was a good historical romance read. Were there parts that were predictable?…maybe, but that’s not a big deal to me, as I think it’s hard to have a completely “new” concept in historical romance now days.

If you really stop to look at it, all four of the Huxtable books are about hope. The salient feature of the four Huxtable siblings is that they all believe in love, not just the kind that often fills romance novels, but the kind that makes hard choices and lives with the consequences because, as Meg says in the third book, "That's what love does when it must."

In order to create a plot, of course, Mary Balogh has to pair these realistic yet determined optimists with people who have been be...

If you really stop to look at it, all four of the Huxtable books are about hope. The salient feature of the four Huxtable siblings is that they all believe in love, not just the kind that often fills romance novels, but the kind that makes hard choices and lives with the consequences because, as Meg says in the third book, "That's what love does when it must."

In order to create a plot, of course, Mary Balogh has to pair these realistic yet determined optimists with people who have been betrayed by love. It is a testament to her skill as a writer that she does so in a way that is believable. And all four of the love interests are already gritty, strong, loving people. They just don't realize it. They are all survivors, however, and Cassandra is like Duncan (in At Last Comes Love ) in that she knows she loves the people she loves. She just has been so badly hurt that she doesn't believe she can risk being married ever again.

And so she sets out to protect the people she does love in the only way she knows how, which leads her to seduce Stephen, Earl of Merton. The youngest Huxtable is stronger than she knows, and considerably more than she allows herself to believe she deserves. They sleep together too soon, and they both know it, on some level. Then they spend the rest of the book going back and fighting through the detritus of Cassandra's past to find their way to loving one another.

It's a very good book. Some of the subplots are tied up too easily (I wanted to punch Cassandra's brother myself, and while her restraint when he finally showed up again was useful in teaching her something about herself, his willingness to slide back into his old role without a more credible apology left me angry at him).

Aside from the Epilogue (which had me in tears, I admit), the book ends in a way very similar to how the first book ( First Comes Marriage ) starts, with Constantine in the family graveyard, talking to his dead brother. This full-circle treatment makes it very clear how interconnected the stories are. Unlike some of her other series, where Mary Balogh seems to just be working her way through a collection of characters, all of whom deserve to have their own happy endings, this collection of books seems to be a more coherent series, with a larger message about love, and hope, and human resilience.

I have high hopes for Constantine's story, whenever it comes. In the meantime, these four books about the Huxtable siblings will give me plenty of rereading pleasure.

I do think that it's worth reading these four books in order.

I loved all of it, the characters were so likable and such good people.
The story keep me excited to continue reading.

I loved all of it, the characters were so likable and such good people.
The story keep me excited to continue reading.