Tempting the Knight

by Heidi Rice

June 22, 2015 · Tule Publishing

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by KNO'Rear. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

Here is K.N.O'Rear's review:

(TW: Alcoholism, emotional neglect)

As many reviewers have said, the hardest reviews to write are the ones where all they can say about the book was that it was okay. Tempting the Knight by Heidi Rice basically embodied that reaction for me. There is nothing particular objectionable about it, but there’s not really anything that I absolutely loved about it either.

Tempting the Knight is part of the Fairy Tales of New York series, but works just fine as a standalone. Each book in the series is also written by a different author, which is something I’m not really a fan of since that means each story will have a different voice and a slightly different interpretation of the characters. Beware of that if you want to read this series.

Moving on: the plot has very little to do with actual fairy tales. It isn’t a retelling and while there were a few fairy tale motifs, I don’t think there were enough to consider it a New York fairy tale. The story opens with a flashback to heroine Zelda Madison’s high school days at a Catholic private school, in particular one night she and her three friends Faith, Dawn and Mercedes decided to drink the communion wine. They are quickly caught by Faith’s eldest brother Tyrone Sullivan who will serve as the hero of this story. Since Zelda already has a “bad girl” reputation and her friends don’t, she takes all the blame, from stealing the wine to encouraging her friends to join her. She gets expelled while her other friends receive a lesser punishment. This is a significant choice since it shows Zelda isn’t just the bad girl she appears to be.

The plot proper begins ten years after the wine incident. Zelda is a recovering alcoholic with a bad reputation and an emotionally neglectful older brother. In attempt to start anew she decides to quit her modeling career and celebrates this decision by going night swimming in her underwear in a public place. She’s arrested and Tyrone, now a lawyer, comes to her rescue with bail, mostly because his sister asked him to, but he also has a bit of a hero complex.

Before I talk any more about the plot, I want to note that this premise is set up quite well. Zelda is almost a gender-swapped version of the typical damaged hero with a tragic past who just needs the love of a good woman to fix him; Tyrone is the gender-swapped version of that good woman and he’s very much a beta-hero. I also like that this clichéd premise is deconstructed as the story goes on. Zelda’s behavior is not glamorized nor without consequences, and while Tyrone’s desire to save her is well-intentioned, it freaks her out because just like in real life the only way for her to truly start over is to face her demons herself.

Unfortunately, despite this perfect set-up for excellent internal conflict, the rest of the plot doesn’t do the concept justice. For instance: Tyrone and Zelda start out as enemies. Tyrone hasn’t forgiven her for getting his baby sister in trouble in high school and considers her just another rich, entitled snob who knows nothing of the real life problems he deals with as a lawyer. Zelda thinks he’s a “hard-ass” and too self-righteous. These issues are then quickly resolved after she convinces him to let her stay at his house while the press forgets about her nighttime swim. The next morning he goes to work and she cleans his house and cooks him dinner to thank him for the rescue.

The rest of the book follows them through a three-day weekend of supposedly no-strings-attached sex wherein they learn about each other’s traumatic pasts and develop feelings for one another. The only problem with that premise is that there is no conflict except for Zelda’s refusal to simply tell Tyrone that she’s an alcoholic in recovery who wants to work on herself before she gets into a serious relationship.

Fittingly, the story ends on more of a happy-for-now note instead of a full happily-ever-after one. Her issues with her brother aren’t resolved, though since he’s the hero of the next book, which kind of annoyed me.

All in all I’d give Tempting the Knight a B+. While it has a great premise and the characters were decent, some parts of the plot annoyed me and there were quite a few run-on-sentences, although I stopped noticing them about halfway through. If you’re in the mood for a hot contemporary with a hero and heroine a little outside the norm I’d pick this one up, but otherwise I’d give it a pass. The entire Fairy Tales of New York series can be found on Amazon for about $3.00- $5.00 each