Mo Daoust
THE SEDUCTION OF VISCOUNT VICE (Fallen #3) by Nicola Davidson Out 1 May 125 pages NG md2011 SSBR The Midsummer Night Ball is under way at Fallen, the naughty pleasure club, and one of its owners, Lord Iain Vissen, better known as Vice, has had it of everyone asking when he will get married. His friends and associates have found their better half, but Vice hasn’t. Or rather, he had found her ten years ago, and lost her. Vice is too unsuitable for the ton’s marriage-minded mamas, and also “too Scottish”. Vice is in charge of the staff and the sex performances at Fallen, in which he also participates, he is pacing the floor when he notices a male employee he doesn’t know, and it’s a woman, Mairi MacNair, his long-lost love! Mairi has just come back from Paris, and she’s spying for her boss Yvette, who intends to open a sex club to rival Fallen. I had not even finished reading The Devil’s Submission, the previous book, that I was eagerly anticipating THE SEDUCTION OF VISCOUNT VICE. I generally don’t like too much sex in historicals, but here it’s the purpose of the exercise, and it works splendidly! Vice is an amazing character: he is bold, brash, scared of nothing, rather crude at times, and oh so very Scottish, and I loved that he reverted to Gaelic only when his feathers were ruffled. He is also a perfectionist, he’s rather OCD, and that was a wonderful touch because his obsession with every little detail was very entertaining, and had me chuckling a few times. Mairi and Vice’s story was really terrific, and the novella could easily have been at least 100 pages longer, because there was a lot more to be said. Ms. Davidson is a superb writer, and again the prose is luminous and elegant, the dialogues absolutely splendid and tailored to every character, and I got the sense of movement when Vice was rushing about: THE SEDUCTION OF VISCOUNT VICE is a very visual experience, if I may say so of a book. Vice and Mairi have a devastating backstory, and again, had it been longer, it could have been explored further. I knew it was a short read, but Ms. Davidson is so talented, it would have been a cinch to expand the story. Anyway. The secondary characters are drawn sharply and concisely, and the sex scenes are scorching. I was a bit surprised that there weren’t any of Vice’s performances at the club, maybe again because of the length of the novella. I hope Ms. Davidson will write Helena’s story, Vice’s younger sister, because she definitely has potential! I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book. I give 4 ½ stars