Griff Knighton is a successful businessman, but he’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder. His inheritance was stolen from him after his birth when the Earl of Swanlea (though he wasn’t the earl then) stole his parents’ marriage certificate and contested Griff's legitimacy in court. The evildoer was successful, and so the title and Swan Park came to him. The earl’s dying now, though, and in a desperate bid to provide for his three unmarried daughters, he bribes Griff into marrying one of them in exchange for the marriage certificate. Griff plans on getting the certificate back, but he won't give into blackmail and marry anyone. Instead, he’ll travel to Swan Park and steal the certificate. To do this, he has his sidekick Daniel Brennan switch places with him. Griff will be Daniel, and Daniel will be Griff, so that Griff will be free to search the house for the marriage certificate. And then he'll ruin the earl and strip him of the title. Muahahahaha.

So begins a plot that is very convoluted and stretches the imagination, so I found the first 100 pages or so of set up pretty tedious. (Though a note from the author at the end says such cases of contested legitimacy did happen, so maybe you shouldn’t listen to me at all. Though it's mostly Griff's masquerade that I found silly.) There is also a Shakespeare obsession in this book, with quotes that can be pretty awkwardly handled at times. But they fade out eventually, or become less awkward, or maybe I get used to them. Besides that, once the hero and heroine meet, I fall for the story, hook line and sinker. Rosalind is one of the Swanlea sisters, and I liked her a lot, barring a ridiculous encounter in which she mistakes Griff for a thieving gypsy and, I kid you not, attacks him with a sword – this was just too much for me. I thought, in that episode at least, Rosalind was an idiot. But thankfully it was a passing moment for her, and she acted perfectly normal/sane forever after. She likes bright colors, has a lot of spirit, is impetuous and emotional. Her chemistry with Griff is sizzling, their verbal battles intelligent and snappy, their interactions fun and full of tension - A Dangerous Love is another very hot book from this author. When they're together I could let the background of why Griff was at Swan Park and his masquerade fade into the background. And even better, we have Griff's unwilling partner in crime, Daniel Brennan, who's there to point out just how much of an “arse” Griff is being, in his relations with Rosalind, his elaborate deception, and his desire for revenge. And Griff does act pretty rascally throughout - he's a man on not the noblest of missions. To which end, we have Daniel interceding on Griff's behalf and trying to explain to Rosalind why Griff is the way he is, telling her that his whole life he’s only known about money and business, so he doesn't know about love (or being a fairly decent human being). Ok, I'll go with it, but the hero should be able to carry his own weight without guru Daniel making excuses for him.

Despite small objections to the basic premise of the story, I found myself engrossed by Griff's romance with Rosalind and smiling throughout the book - especially when Daniel sticks it to Griff, who deserves, at the very least, to get his ego punctured. And Rosalind can certainly hold her own against him too. Even though she's very susceptible to Griff’s charms, (and who wouldn’t be?) she's not stupid when confronted with so many reasons to be suspicious of him, and she never lets down her guard. Unfortunately, her worst suspicions are confirmed and Griff's dastardly plan is exposed. Cue betrayal and dramatics, which take up the rest of the book and which start to drag for me. Rosalind gets kind of annoying, especially when she runs off to be an actress, but then she has every reason to turn from Griff and doubt his feelings for her. And Griff gets annoying because he seems like such a jerk, but at the same time I’ve got to love him because he's so determined to hold onto Rosalind no matter what – so there’s really no black and white in this book, I don’t think. They each have their flaws, but they all have their own sides to the story as well. Though the book does make Griff jump through many hoops to make up for his past behavior, making me wonder if his total abasement was really necessary. I believed in their love without it. Then again, some might find his actions at the end terribly romantic. Even though I wish things could have been a little less complicated, and even though the book is pretty heavy handed in moralizing against Griff’s selfishness, the tangled plot threads are bit by bit resolved into a satisfactory, sigh-worthy happily ever after, and except for the beginning, I'm loving the story, so 4 ½ stars for A Dangerous Love. ( )

"A Dangerous Love" is the first book in the Swanlea Spinsters series. It is the story of Marsden Griffith Knighton ("Griff"), who has been wrongly denied his inheritance of the Earldom of Swanlea, and Lady Rosalind, a passionate and rather eccentric young lady who is the daughter of the current Earl. Wanting to see his daughters taken care of before he dies, the ailing Earl of Swanlea blackmails Griff with proof of his legitimacy. He can have the proof of his parents' marriage if he marries one of the Earl of Swanlea's daughters. Griff is having none of the marriage, but decides to play along and recover the marriage certificate himself. To do this, he switches places with his man of affairs - Daniel Brennan - the son of a notorious Irish highwayman who must pretend to be Griff while the real Griff searches the house. Rosalind is suspicious as soon as she finds the (real) Griff snooping around her father's desk the first night he is there. Following him around wherever he goes, a passion ignites between them that neither of them expected...

This book is fun, if a little complex. It's also a bit unrealistic that Daniel Brennan would be taken for a gentleman, although Jeffries counters that by the fact that Griff is a tradesman, so people expect him to be a little gruff. There are some anachronisms in this book - I found myself constantly asking myself if that would have really happened, or if Rosalind really could have gotten away with that, and the language seems a bit modern for my taste. Nonetheless, it's an enjoyable book, and a quick read. This, like the rest of Sabrina Jeffries' books, is also packed full of sex and innuendo, which is generally pretty steamy. ;) ( )