All I Desire is marketed as a romance and it does focus on the relationship between a man and a woman. On the other hand, there is no love – not even love confessed at the very last page. There is no trust as well, and repeated degradation of the heroine at the hands of the hero – with no groveling afterwards. I applaud the expansion and increased variety within the romance genre, but to me, this is as far as romance can stretch without morphing into erotica. Not that there is anything wrong with well-written erotica – it is simply another genre.

The infamous exotic dancer, Samara Teva, lies dying, tended by a very young artist, Francesca Reay. After Samara’s death, her brother-in-law, Alex Deveney, shows up to bring Samara back to England. Perceiving a threat to her beloved cousin Colm, Francesca pretends to be Samara. Alex finds the dichotomy of Francesca/Samara irresistible. In order to break a spy ring and to indulge himself a little, he blackmails Francesca into lewd dancing at private gatherings. But the spies prove to have more sinister plans than Alex ever imagined and Francesca is trapped in a whirl of dreams and perversions.

Francesca’s reason for impersonating Samara strikes me as improbable at best. If more effort had been made to explain her relationship to her cousin Colm and his role in the grand scheme of things, perhaps her later choices would have made more sense. An example is why she never took the money and just simply left. The vicious plot the spies and traitors are hatching is quite fitting to the style of All I Desire. However, applying common sense to the plot should be avoided if any sort of enjoyment is to be retained.

The language used in the sexual encounters is blunt rather than softly purple. This works well for me, but the conversations at the villain’s adulterous interludes put me more in mind of the script of a porn movie than a romance novel. Given that the skanky relations take up about as much space as Alex’s and Francesca’s do, this influenced the tone of the entire novel.

To be honest, I found All I Desire an acceptable read, but it does not represent my preferred type of romance. Ms. Devine may be known for her heated love scenes, but I found the lack of trust and emotional connection between Alex and Francesca to be more of a stumbling block than the lust scenes per se. Regardless of how you feel about the sensuality level, if you prefer your heroes and heroines to bond early and to trust and cooperate, you might prefer another book.