Master of Seduction by Kinley MacGregor

So it's been ages since I read a pirate romance. I read all three of Jennifer Ashley's books last year, and figured that since I enjoyed them that I may enjoy Kinley MacGregor's pirate book when I picked it up by mistake from the library. I thought I was getting Master of Desire, another Scottish romance, not this one!

No Man Could Master Her

All lovely Lorelei Dupree had in mind was helping her fiance and the city of Charleston by setting a trap for the infamous pirate Black Jack Rhys. She certainly never intended to let him kidnap her. And she most definitely had no intention of losing her heart to a man so skilled in the arts of love that they called him the master of seduction.

Black Jack Rhys had a score to settle with an old enemy. Kidnapping his adversary's fiancee seemed liked the perfect answer. But the man who'd won the hearts of a thousand women hadn't counted on falling in love himself.

This book was unbelievable, and no I don't mean that in a this was truly amazing and awesome way...just that it was completely unbelievable.

I'll skip the preamble and get to what should have been the meaty bit of the story. Jack had kidnapped Lorelei, taken her on board his ship and was sailing off over the horizon. So far, so good. Within pages of this event, we discover that every single pirate on board is a gentleman and no harm will come of to Lorelei at the Captains behest. Some of the pirates even have their wives on board with them who spend time mending clothes, doing laundry, and in the evening the crew provide romantic music as the sun sets on another glorious day on the ocean. O-k-a-y.

At first Lorelei is put in a cabin that has lovely large windows (??), but when there is a battle (or rather a few cannonballs fired in anger) she is put into a different, dingy room. Queue the Captain's son to ask her favourite colour, and voila..a whole room full of lovely furniture including yellow bed coverings, lace, you name it! Oh, and do you have a secret desire to paint Lorelei? Why yes I do...voila....easels, paints of every possible colour. What shall we have for dinner? Roast chicken, no, roast duck perhaps? A touch of playfulness turns into a pillow fight turns into a sword fight between the hero and heroine. Lucky she is such a talented swordsperson. Well of course, her Granny taught her!! The list of things that were unlikely are endless.

So what about Lorelei and Jack. Aside from the fact that pirates named Jack will forever look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean to me, Jack was okay. So he paid people to say how badly he had treated them, but freely admitted that if backed into a corner he would fight tooth and nail to escape. There's nothing wrong with having a good publicity machine! And Lorelei was likeable enough..I guess. Well she was there at least!

Overall this was a lackluster book that I thought about putting down and not picking up again on more than one occasion. At some stage, I will probably read the other pirate book by Kinley MacGregor called A Pirate of Her Own, but I definitely will not be spending good money on it!

Rating 3/5