St. John Thornton, better known as Sinjun, is being forced to marry against his will. He’s fourteen, and his bride is a mere child of seven, and she’s just as happy to be marrying him – as she demonstrates with a couple of kicks to his shins. Fortunately for Sinjun, after the ceremony he can go back to discovering pleasure in bedding women, and doesn’t see Christy Macdonald again for the next fifteen years.

When “Flora Randall” walks into a room where Sinjun, better known as Lord Sin, is holding court, he is instantly smitten. She is a goddess, and he must have her right then and there, which he nearly does. What Sinjun doesn’t know is that Flora is actually Christy, who has come to London to get herself pregnant with his child. Back home in Scotland, her clansmen are asking to have her marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. Calum Cameron, who seeks to marry Christy and gain control of the clans, is especially eager for her marriage to end.

The love scenes (and there are plenty of them) begin before page fifty, with a deflowering marathon. However, there’s no revelation of Flora’s true identity. Former dissolute rake Sinjun readily agrees to her demand for exclusivity, and she figures that within three months she can achieve her goal and go home to Glenmoor without having to worry about Calum anymore.

Then Flora vanishes without a trace, leaving a dejected Sinjun behind. Conveniently enough, Sinjun’s older brother Julian orders him to see to the unrest growing in his Scottish holdings in Glenmoor, where the latest news is that Sinjun’s supposedly virgin wife is pregnant. Sinjun goes to Glenmoor, since he has nothing better to do, and there sees The Macdonald, who is one and the same as Flora Randall, his mistress and his wife. Calum, however, is undeterred by the vision of his laird and her husband together, and vows to get leadership of the clan, in whatever way he can.

Neither Calum nor, initially, Sinjun himself, is welcome into Christy’s life because she has spent it doing as she pleases, as laird of her people. A husband represents restrictions and she is, justifiably, unwilling to believe the newly reformed Sinjun. Her behavior makes sense at first, but unfortunately she keeps on lying to Sinjun right until the end, and her behavior really left a bitter taste in my mouth. Sinjun’s reformed rake is a staple of the historical romance, and in this case, little separated him from the thirty-odd other reformed rakes I have met of late. He is instantly smitten with Flora/Christy, is instantly willing to commit to her and her alone, but even though he comes to love her, he doesn’t pursue the matter of the letter she sends him announcing that their marriage is to end.

A Taste of Sin started off fairly well, but too many romance novel plot devices marred my enjoyment. There is, for one, an overabundance of coincidences that make it difficult – if not impossible – to suspend disbelief. There’s Sunjun’s brother sending him to Glenmoor with great timing, and Sinjun having sex with a masked woman, who, of course, is Christy. Then there’s the communication/trust conundrum that defies credulity. Christy and Sinjun just didn’t speak or trust each other, not when Christy’s life was in danger, and not when Sinjun receives her annulment request. And the sex scenes, as hot and plentiful as they were, ended up being more repetitive than anything – and they’re definitely not for everyone. There are also women wearing “dampened gauze dresses” although I believe that this was more of a Regency custom than a 1760s custom.

If you’ve enjoyed Connie Mason’s books before, then you might like this one. The start of the book isn’t bad, and the ending was a happy one. For me, A Taste of Sin was ironic – I thought, for a while, that I had a good read in my hands.