Rating: 
Summary: Loved It!
Review: Just finished the book. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the hero is pompous, but it is all a part of the desert culture that he spent his formative years in. After all, don't most men think women couldn't live without them. The victorian era was very repressive, and the author shows that at heart Charlotte is just as wild as the hero. I hope the author completes the series and marries off the remaining ladies. The story that was set up at the end of the book is very intriguing. Would make a fantastic read.
Rating: 
Summary: Only for those who love alpha males and rape fantasies
Review: I read this book because I enjoy Dodd's way with dialog, and I thought a governess-employer relationship offered lots of opportunity for verbal sparring, a la Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn. Was I in for a disappointment! The hero, if you want to call him that, is a bone-headed neanderthal who spent his years from age fourteen onward with a tribe of Bedouins who taught him a) to survive in the desert and b) to believe women were chattel, impossible to love. When he finally decides to return home to his grieving, if scatterbrained, mother, he immediately selects his children's governess as the woman for him, and so sets about socially humiliating her and sexually molesting her until she is forced to marry him. Even his mother calls him a "jackass." This caveman carts his new bride off to a tent after they are wed, rips her wedding clothes of off her with a knife, and rapes her. Never fear, we are told she liked it. As she wondered later, "What kind of primitive creature lived in her heart, craving his mastery?" Indeed, I wonder, too. A psychotherapist would have a field day with this crowd. The story line of workplace sexual harassment circa 1830 is fleshed out with a supposed embezzling scheme and the heroine's fruitless task of civilizing the hero. The embezzling angle is wrapped up in less than a paragraph, and the "civilizing" theme is very sketchy--on one hand, we are supposed to believe the hero is a hot-blooded shiekh of the desert who somehow forgot everything he learned prior to age fourteen, and on the other hand we are told he plays 'stupid savage' just to be sure to get his own way. Finally, his children (!) assure our dysfunctional hero that yes, indeed, he does love his bride. Supposely a light bulb goes on over his head, and he is a Changed Man, yet we are told once again that "reluctant maidens should be kidnapped." The only way to really enjoy this uncomfortable, illogical tale is to take it as some sort of spoof of 1970's-era bodice-rippers, and laugh off all of our hero's caveman behavior as if it were just a pie in the face. Good Luck.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was really excited to read this book but once I started it I was soo disappointed...Charlotte may be a Miss Priss but Wynter is such an arrogant jerk. He belives that he is the bases for her whole existence and that without him or any man she is nothing--that really bothered me and I never cared what happened to the characters because of that---
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down
Review: I could not put this book down! The banter between ALL characters (nevermind the main characters) had me laughing so hard I was crying. When I did emerge from the book (which was a total of three times) my family thought I was nuts from the laughter and comments they heard from me. This is a must read! Christina Dodd has out done herself! I can't wait to read more of her books.
Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: The subject and beginning of this novel are well done. However, the hero's obtuseness and eventual rape of the heroine, as well as his simplistic character development, makes this book a dud.
Rating: 
Summary: Beauty and the Beast
Review: Lady Charlotte Dalrumple (also known as Miss Priss) has the unenviable task of civilizing two children who have known only life in a Bedouin tribe until their father decides that it's time to return to his family responsibilities in 19th century England. The children, however, turn out to be a piece of cake - it's their father who is truly the beast. Although he lived his first fifteen years in England, he seems to have lost his civilized English veneer and he's wholeheartedly assimilated a thoroughly male-centric world view: men are like the sun, and women revolve around the sun, loving it and drawing from its warmth and protection. Of course, "everyone" knows the sun doesn't love those that orbit it - its job is only to stay strong, warm, and functional. Picture Miss Priss trying to teach this man (because she ends up getting drawn in to becoming his governess, too) how to conduct himself in polite Victorian society, when HE has already decided that she is need of his warmth and protection (and it doesn't hurt that he likes her body, too), and you have the story.I liked the plot, but I found that the characters were not always as likable. Lady Charlotte often came across as a thoroughly neurotic woman who developed a load of guilt for something fairly tame (however, I suppose Victorian England really was that repressed - I just kept waiting for us to learn about a far juicier past than she turned out to have). I found Lord Ruskin surprisingly dense, for a man portrayed with a fair amount of native intelligence. However, the conversations between these two sparkled, and the sexual scenes were slowly and wickedly developed. I stifled a laugh at the vision of Lady Charlotte falling off her chair in panic, in front of Queen Victoria - the author has a gift for painting pictures with words! All in all, an enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining read
Review: This is an entertaining, fast moving book with believable characters. If you liked Gaffney's Wild at Heart or Ivory's The Proposition, you'll enjoy this too.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: Silly Adorna from That Scandalous Evening is now all grown up, a widow, a grandmother and in need of a very good governess. She turns to The Distinguished Academy of Governesses to help her with her little problem. Her little problem being two unruly grandchildren and a son who needs a proper education as to how to act like a gentleman in society. In comes Lady Charlotte Dalruple, England's most proper governess, a woman who has never taken a misstep socially-or romantically. When Adorna's sadly uncivilized son first sets eyes on Charlotte he is smitter and determined to have her as a wife and in his bed as soon as possible. Charlotte and Wynter play a good game of merry-go-round until Wynter badly tarnishes the beautiful young governess's reputation with a kiss. (oh for shame!) Rules of Surrender was a good book but it just didn't have what That Scandalous Evening had. While enjoyable, I never really connected with the characters. If you enjoy a good Christina Dodd this is a book that can't be missed, but be prepared for a little bit of a letdown.
Rating: 
Summary: Romance Reader Junkie
Review: This is a good read, but not an "I can't put it down" or "laugh out loud" or "swipe those tears" read. Ms. Dodd is a very good creator of interesting characters, but they didn't have very much depth in this work. And, honestly, I don't expect incredible depth in romance paperbacks, but I do want a character to hook me. Wynter almost did. He was very close, but his chosen wife just didn't develop enough to carry off his quirky, romantic "King & I" part. I will continue to read Ms. Dodd's works because she is a very readable author.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: This is not one the best Christina Dodd books ever written, but it was still good. It started out slow but gained speed as each character was introduced and matured. Charlotte is a strong willed and strictly proper woman. Wynter is also strong willed but with the belief that a woman lives for her man and man lives for his pleasures. She soon teaches him differently and there begins a story of learning how to love and be loved unconditionally. I look forward to the sequel to this three book series.
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