THE OFFER by Catherine Coulter

PUBLISHER: Topaz, 1997
ORIGINAL PUB: Signet, 1981 & 88 under title An Honorable Offer
SETTING: England, 1814
GENRE: Historical Romance
MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS:  Lovely young Sabrina Eversleigh, granddaughter of the esteemed Earl of Monmouth first learned of the disreputable desires of men when her dissolute brother-in-law attempted to force himself upon her. Thus when Sabrina met Phillip Mercerault, it came as no surprise to tier that this handsome, dashing Viscount kept a mistress in London and showed no shame about the many conquests and liaisons of his notorious love life. Sabrina was sure that with so many women to serve his needs, Phillip would be quite satisfied to accept her wealth and leave her person alone if she became his wife. But two things Sabrina did not count on in her cold calculations: the heat of her own blood and the hunger of her heart...

MY THOUGHTS: This story started out pretty interesting. Sabrina is just eighteen. She has red hair and violet eyes. Her older sister, Elizabeth, twenty-three, is a jealous, nasty person, as is her twenty-seven year old husband, Trevor. Elizabeth is a bit controlled by him but because of her personality I can't feel sorry for her. She's a horrible person. She's so blinded by her jealousy of Sabrina that she truly doesn't care that she was almost raped by Trevor and insisted that Sabrina was lying.

After Sabrina and the hero, twenty-six year old Phillip, meet, the story got a bit boring and stayed that way until the end. I don't like or dislike Phillip. He's not alpha or beta, just somewhere inbetween. After they married he did continue to see his mistress but that didn't bother me. Something's lacking with this character that I just can't put my finger on. They got along really well for most of the story. There wasn't much conflict between them and that's something I need. I hate when hero and heroine get along too well. Boring.

One character that I did like was Sabrina's aunt, Lady Barresford. She's so unlikable. When Sabrina went to live with her and told about the attempted rape she called her a liar and said she tried to seduce Trevor. Such a nasty bitch, that woman is. She has no reason at all to think that of Sabrina. She even tried to get her hands of Sabrina's inheritance!

Teresa Elliott was a semi-interesting character. She's loved Phillip for a while and was really jealous and angry when he married Sabrina. I really though she was going to try and harm Sabrina but she never bothered her. To be honest, that's the main reason I finished reading this book.

I wasn't too happy with this story and even though Catherine is one of my top favorite authors, I won't be keeping this.