Seduction by Design: 05/15/08

Sandra Brown is one of those super prolific authors. If I'm counting correctly, she's written seventy-two books. To complicate things further, she has been published under a variety of names: Rachel Ryan, Laura Jordan, Erin St. Claire and finally Sandra Brown. She's obviously most well known as Sandra Brown and many of her early novels have been republished under the name Sandra Brown. For example, the 2001 edition of Seduction by Design was originally published in 1983 and listed Erin St. Claire as the author.

Seduction by Design isn't one of Brown's better books but it is among her earliest published works. It does show hints at how she likes to play with genre expectations and cliches but in this novel she doesn't pull it off.

Hailey Ashton may be a successful business woman but the shit she puts up with from her boss is creepy and abusive. In a modern Brown novel I would expect the heroine to quit her job and get a restraining order against her boss, sue him and hook up with her lawyer but not in this one.

Then there is the added ick factor of Tyler (the boss) being a single father and using his daughter as a bargaining chip. Again, in a modern Brown novel, Hailey would probably call child protective services but not here.

I read the book cover to cover mostly for the amazement at how much Brown has improved as a writer. If you're a fan of her writing and want to read everything she's published, then go ahead and read Seduction by Design. If not, feel free to skip it.

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