Moment of Desire by Rachel Cosgrove Payes

Unfortunately for Mellie, her mother is a real lusty tramp, screwing around with married lords and pissing off their wives. She lives at the English court, as her mother is a lady-in-waiting to German King George’s wife. Mellie is youthfully self-centered and cares only for her pleasure.

(Despite modern perspectives, that’s what bear baitings were for, after all!)

She indifferently laments the fact that she has no money to gamble. Unlike other heroines in Romancelandia, Mellie doesn’t bat an eyelid at the sight of animal cruelty. She worries that her dress may not be low-cut enough to obtain his prurient interest. Moment of Desire begins as 14-year-old Mellie Wilton, a buxom, blue-eyed blonde, tries to catch the eye of a much older nobleman at a violent bear-baiting. Its heroine is so conniving, so cunning, and so single-minded in her pursuits of love and revenge that she made me love this book beyond all logical reason.Īfter a couple of decades of reading romance, I can’t say I’ve encountered too many heroines like Melusina Wilton, and that’s a damn shame. The company churned out bodice-ripping romances and schlocky sci-fi well into the ’70s and early ’80s, part of the second golden era of pulpy trash. This romp was published by Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Press. M oment of Desire by Rachel Cosgrave Payes might be an aberration, both for her–I wasn’t fond of The Coach To Hell, the other Cosgrove Payes book I read–and the historical romance genre. Genres: Historical Romance, Bodice Ripper, Georgian Era Romance Moment of Desire by Rachel Cosgrave Payes

Moment of Desire by Rachel Cosgrove Payes