Book-Thirsty Thursday: The Heiress’s Deception, Christi Caldwell

Christi Caldwell’s The Heiress’s Deception has a heroine who hates math but is good at it, and no, that’s not the deception, but this book is actually good.

Perhaps it’s just because there’s been a lot of hefty news going around lately, or perhaps it’s just that The Heiress’s Deception is simply good. This review suspects that the truth is really in the middle.

Regardless, here’s the rundown of our plot. Calum and Eve shared a connection as children, despite being of very different positions in life — he was a street urchin, she’s a duke’s daughter — but her brother Gerald had him hauled off to Newgate and told Eve he was dead. Of course, he is very much not dead, and instead runs a gaming hell, the aptly-named Hell and Sin (which, having read many a romance novel that features such establishments, might be the most obvious name ever) with his family by choice. Of course, Gerald has not stopped being terrible in the ensuing years, so, under a false name, Eve heads to the Hell and Sin.

Here’s one of those reasons I think it might just be a benefit of timing that the book came out this week. You almost certainly know all the plot beats of The Heiress’s Deception pretty much from the start. But adhering to a formula isn’t always a cardinal sin, and after a year that’s finally winding down after being wild, to say the least, it’s actually quite comforting. The hero and heroine have their little quirks — she helps orphans, he has a reliance on instinct — but we know that, at the end of it all, they’re going to be happy.

Even if the romance seems a little sudden and forced at the very beginning, it smoothes out in later parts, with the words “I love” appearing before the ending more than once, and sometimes not even in angsty situations! Even during the big reveal of the book, which is telegraphed more than once, I was surprised and pleased by it despite knowing it was coming.

Caldwell’s writing is nice. Her characterization is nice. She draws the connections between the other books in this Sinful Brides series enough for newcomers to get the gist without feeling they have to go back, although she does hit on it particularly hard for plot reasons. All in all, this book is just nice, and sometimes, even on a column like Book-Thirsty Thursday, niceness is all that’s required (with a love scene and a few steamy kisses, because this is a romance novel and that’s just what we expect).

Next: 20 female masters of science fiction to add to your reading list

Besides, is there anything so wrong with a guaranteed happy ending? Not at the moment, not for this reviewer.