Any Wicked Thing by newcomer Margaret Rowe is billed as an erotic historical romance. As a fan of erotic romances and historicals I was thrilled to receive this one for review. It quickly became apparent though that this would not work for me as erotica, or even as a romance.

In her youth Frederica Wells (Freddie) was desperate for her friend Sebastian Goddard, heir to the Duke of Roxbury, to notice her. She was so desperate that she enacted a plan to seduce Sebastian by disguising herself as a milkmaid at a house party given by the duke. Her plans went awry, however, when their tryst was discovered by their fathers who were having a tryst of their own. Sebastian hastily offered marriage to Freddie, but the Duke of Roxbury declared her beneath his son, and Sebastian fled the castle to spend the next ten years debauching his way across Europe and Egypt.

Ten years later, Sebastian has now inherited the duchy and returns to the castle. The old duke has left him with a mountain of debts and he is anxious to be rid of the ramshackle castle. Freddie loves the place though and makes Sebastian an offer he cannot refuse: She agrees to become his mistress for the next thirty days if he will agree to sell the castle to her at the end of that time.

I will get straight to the heart of my problem with the book: Sebastian is an ass. He thinks unkind thoughts about Freddie. “But he wouldn’t marry Freddie – he’d rather die of the pox.” He threatens the butler with death if he doesn’t mind his own business. That’s right. Death, not termination of employment. Termination, period. It is explained that he would never harm the old man, but I still found his thought process more than a little disturbing.

When he catches Freddie snooping through his belongings they have a sexual encounter that is consensual, but that felt very much like rape to me. Freddie muses afterward, “He’d never before displayed this cruel side in all their previous games, and she hated him for it.” The he leaves her tied to the bed. Freddie then spends “a restless night, her sex still aching from Sebastian’s selfish retribution.” Violent sex as punishment with humiliation and subjugation? This entire scene left me uncomfortable and nauseous.

Speaking of sex, I found the sex in this so-called erotic romance to be rather mechanical. The characters go through the motions, but there is no real chemistry between them to hold the reader’s interest. Ropes and a few scattered dirty words do not make good erotica in and of themselves. For an erotic romance to work for me there must be an element of sensuality and connection between the characters. Sadly, this was lacking in Any Wicked Thing, which is a terrible shame as I liked the premise and enjoyed the author’s voice.

I’m certain there are readers who will not be put off by the same things in this novel that I was. Based on my reading experience, however, I cannot recommend this one.