Review: Seducing Mr. Knightly by Maya Rodale

Title: Seducing Mr. Knightly

Author: Maya Rodale

Publication: Avon

Release Date: Oct. 30, 2012

Series: The Writing Girls Bk 4

Source: Edelweiss

He’s the only man she’s ever loved…

For ages it seems advice columnist Annabelle Swift has loved Derek Knightly, editor-owner of The London Weekly from a distance. Determined to finally attract her employer’s attention, she seeks advice from her loyal readers—who offer Annabelle myriad suggestions…from lower-cut bodices (success!) and sultry gazes (disaster!) to a surprise midnight rendezvous (wicked!).

She’s the only woman he’s never noticed…

Derek never really took note of his shy, wallflower lady writer. But suddenly she’s exquisite…and he can’t get Annabelle out of his mind! She must be pursuing someone, but who? For some inexplicable reason, the thought of her with another man makes Knightly insanely jealous.

Will Dear Annabelle find her happy ending?

But Knightly’s scandalous periodical has been targeted for destruction by a vengeful Lord Marsden, and the beleaguered editor now faces a devastating choice: either marry Marsden’s sister to save his beloved newspaper…or follow his heart and wed his Writing Girl.

                     I was slightly disappointed by Seducing Mr. Knightly, the last book in the Writing Girls series by Maya Rodale.  And only slightly because it’s good to see or read about how the other half lives.  The other half who have no passion in their marriage or romance in their courtship, the other half who just goes the expected path with no surprises in store.  And that’s the feeling I got from Seducing Mr. Knightly.

                                From the first book, A Groom of One’s Own from The Tattooed Duke, we got snippets of Annabelle’s love and what could potentially be passion for Mr. Knightly who is her boss at the newspaper, The Weekly. 

                         While I can never deny Annabelle’s passion for Derek Knightly, the emotion never fully came across the page to me.  Definitely not Derek’s passion for Annabelle, and ultimately that is why Seducing Mr. Knightly never really took hold of my heartstrings the way the past books in the series did.

                                       Derek didn’t seem to me to really care one way or another who he married; his only real passion was and would always be to me the newspaper he oversaw.  Derek took Annabelle’s interest in stride I thought and was totally clueless about who the object of her affections was up until the very last part of the book.

                     Annabelle; to her credit did most of the work and really didn’t get much of anything out of it except for a roll in the hay and to me what appears to me to be a slightly interested Derek Knightly.

                     In the end, Seducing Mr. Knightly was a disappointment for me in this series.  But one that I can overlook since Maya Rodale is a great storyteller.