In The Taste of Innocence, Stephanie Laurens manages to pull off a triple play of plot points that did not work at all for me. First, this is beyond Regency-lite; much of the book had a very contemporary feel to it. Second, this is the first time in a while for me that the hero is TSTL, and worst, his angst is just ridiculous. Third, for part of the book the heroine behaves like a complete ninny.

When Lord Charles Morwellan decides the time is right to marry and get himself an heir, he settles on Sarah Conningham, his neighbor’s eldest daughter. To his shock, Sarah is completely underwhelmed by his offer and negotiates two weeks in which she will get to know him better and give him an answer to his proposal.

During what proved to be, for this reader, an interminable two weeks, Charlie attends parties, chats with, and woos Sarah. He also arranges for them to meet in a summerhouse nightly where he introduces Sarah to passion. After they finally “do the deed”, Sarah reluctantly agrees to marry him, with conditions – which in a time of no birth control and the high value placed on virginity seemed extremely dumb on her part.

One of Sarah’s conditions is that she retains title to the land that houses an orphanage where she has always been extremely involved. Sarah is a hands-on overseer who mingles well with the children and she gets much joy from launching “her” children into jobs that will provide them with happy lives.

Sarah, in spite of her early silliness about marrying Charlie, is an intelligent woman. She is determined to have love in her marriage and would rather stay “on the shelf” than marry for convenience. After the passion Charlie showed her before their marriage – and now nightly in their marriage bed – she cannot understand why, once the sun comes up, Charlie treats her coldly.

The suspense part of the plot involves a group of men who anticipate where new railroads are going and purchase the lands needed by whatever means necessary to sell them at a high price to the railroads. The villain is obvious from his first introduction, which only served to make Charlie even dumber then his actions toward Sarah indicated.

Charlie determination not to love Sarah – “his father destroyed his life because of his obsession with love” – annoyed me to no end. He suffers for chapter after chapter over loving Sarah and losing control of his life. I wanted to just whomp him up the side of the head and yell “get over it.” When it is finally revealed what his father did, it was so stupid that it only made Charlie look – again – even dumber. Especially because he is surrounded by happy loving couples of the Cynster clan – whose names and coupling are repeated ad nauseam, further slowing down the story. Why couldn’t Charlie see that the dozen friends who loved their wives were happy, versus the one example of his father?? But, most of the book is angst, angst, angst! Dumb, dumb, dumb!

To make matters worse, Charlie’s policeman friend Barnaby explains to Charlie that a land speculator is in the area and to be on the lookout for high offers or unusual incidents on any of the area’s property. When he receives a high offer for Quilley Farm (Sarah’s orphanage), he turns it down with absolutely no thought. Sarah attempts to tell him of accidents at the farm, but he cruelly brushes her off and never makes the connection until she is nearly killed and Barnaby tells him of the problems at Quilley. Again, TSTL!

The only thing that saved this story from an even lower grade was the heroine’s likability. Sarah was intelligent as well, but it must be said that even her IQ dropped to ninny level at times. Even so, had Charlie’s intelligence matched hers, had the book been without all the stomping around and angsting over nothing, and had the villain been less obvious, The Taste of Innocence might have worked for me. Instead, Laurens’ latest failed on almost all levels…even the sex was repetitive and boring. Sarah just could not carry this story alone on her slender shoulders.