Review: Too Dangerous to Desire by Cara Elliott

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Of the three hounds, Cameron Daggett is the most reserved and most secretive, even his friends don't really know his full story and joke about where he came from and what happened to him. Cameron is content to leave things at that: no job defines him, no fixed residence ties him down and he's always one step ahead of his past.

Until his past walks into The Wolf's Lair and back into his life.

Sophie Lawrance never forgot the love she sacrificed many years ago but has no time to dwell on it because she is busy keeping her sisters and father safe from a blackmail threat against their family. She never expected to see Cam again, and never expected to do so at The Wolf's Lair, where she was delivering something to her blackmailer.

But now that they have found each other again, they must wrestle with questions from their past, as well as questions from their present. What happened to Cameron these past five years? Where did he go and what did he do? Who is blackmailing Sophie? And why?

Love is sweeter the second time around.

There is one scene that stands out now that I am writing this review: when Cam finally reveals who he is to Sophie -- and Sophie reaches out and touches him. It's a simple scene but evocative of the yearning and love that the two feel for each other. Their younger selves weren't ready for the relationship but it is equally saddening that their older selves aren't free of any impediments either: Sophie has her sisters and her deteriorating father to think about and she keeps the burden of the blackmail a secret from them.

"Sophie ... Sunbeam." The words were barely more than a sigh, yet they hit her with all the force of a physical slap. Only one person in the world had ever called her by such a pet name. A boy on the brink of manhood, bristling with uncontrollable passions.

Dear God, it couldn't be ... Her head began to reel and her throat was suddenly dry as dust. She stared in mute shock for a long, dizzying moment before managing to make a sound.

"Cameron?"

"Ah, at last you've puzzled it out. I was beginning to think you had forgotten I ever existed."

"N-never," whispered Sophie.

He leaned back and regarded her in solemn silence.

Reaching up, she slowly untied the mask and let it fall away.
- p. 44

I have to say I enjoyed Too Dangerous to Desire more than I did the previous books. I always thought Cameron was very fascinating when he appeared in Gryff and Connor's books and often wondered how he got the information he provided his friends. Even then, I knew that there was more to Cameron than met the eye.

The intrigue in this novel was also well done. It involves an important document that directly affects the Marquess of Wolcott, Cameron's lifelong enemy -- and Sophie's family is the decisive factor. I love how Cara Elliott ties in the blackmail plot with the mystery behind Cameron's origins and that Sophie was the key, all along: not just to his heart, but to the unanswered questions of his past as well.

My one complaint is the ending, which I thought was overly complicated: Cam and Sophie get shot at, and then they get captured ... and then they end up on a sloop at sea and the villains are chasing after them. The tangle that Sophie found herself in was already sorting itself around midway through the book, when Cameron stepped in and then Cameron's own problems started to be settled near the end -- I wish the author had allowed the story to end that way, without all the roundabout action and final resolution.

Too Dangerous to Desire is the last book in Cara Elliott's Lords of Midnight series. To find out more about Cara Elliott and her books, click below:
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