Kathleen Korbel's Dangerous Temptation is a typical romance novel. Nuala, a fairy princess, has a crush on Zeke Kendall. He in turn finds Nuala utterly irresistable. Zeke falls off one of the fairy mounds and somehow changes dimensions to the fairy realm. Nuala tries to protect him from her mother, Queen Mab. Here youngest sister plots with her arranged marriage groom to change Mab's mind and turn the queendom over to the youngest daughter, Orla. Orla conspires with the Dark Sword Sidhe unleashing a battle between the light and dark courts.

I enjoyed the Celtic mythology, but the purple prose dragged the work down a bit. The characters were rather one dimensional. There was the beautiful heroine, and extremely handsome hero. The book was told alternately from the point of view of the hero and heroine. The switch from one point of view to another would through me out of the story narrative. The author's use of a thesaurous was obvious to the point of being annoying and redudant. The narrative would have flowed a lot smoother without having to come up with yet another way to describe the same person or scene again. ( )

Zeke Kendall is an anthropologist and visiting Ireland. He turns a corner and finds himself in Fairy and involved in complicated Fairy politics. Nuala, the heir to the throne, is attracted to him and trying to find her way around the politics of the situation and the love she feels for him.

It's fun and you can see where Korbel did her research on the mythology of the Irish relationship with fairy. The characters were interesting as well and well drawn. It is a fairly formula romance but it's good within it's kind. ( )

I got into the paranormal romance genre by reading the horror that is Laurell K. Hamilton. Because I'm a sucker for punishment, I grabbed Dangerous Temptation in the hopes that it would be an equally hilarious romp through the fae world.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite my stigma for romance novels in general, this one was well-written and actually interesting. The plot is this: An anthropologist named Zeke stumbles into the fae world while working at a dig. Unbeknownst to him, the fae crown princess has been pining for him since his youth, and she finds herself torn between the love she has for him and his world, and the duty she has to her people.

It sounds like a typical romance novel, I know, but because this is book one of a trilogy, the author has taken the time to establish sub-stories that intertwine with the main plot and add a level of real urgency to the princess' plight that goes beyond typical swooning and bemoaning. The plot's engaging enough to carry the reader through the book, and combined with the author's wonderful use of description, Dangerous Temptation becomes a story to get lost in for a weekend. ( )

http://community.livejournal.com/50bookchallenge/6779523.html ( )

By far the better of the two launch books for Nocturne, this is the final book in Korbel's Kendall series. I have read only one of the others (Some Men's Dreams, SIM #1237), but had enough information about Zeke's brother and sisters to not feel left out. Zeke is genuine and realistically written. Nuala is torn in two directions, her struggle believeable and painful. A fantastic read. I look forward to the other books in the series. ( )