Susan Johnson is famous for her footnotes. Legendary Lover has only six footnotes and none are particularly interesting or esoteric. Susan Johnson is famous for her sex scenes. Legendary Lover has a whole lot more more than six sex scenes and none of them are particularly sexy or erotic.

Jack Fitz-James, the Marquis of Redvers, is the lover. He is rich and handsome and studly and built and a legend among the bored and insatiable. And he’s only 24! One day he meets a beautiful blonde young woman. Big deal. Jack has bedded lots of beautiful blonde young women. But this is our heroine, Venus Duras, and Jack approaches her. Why? She’s a beautiful blonde young woman.

Venus rebuffs him, and Jack scents a challenge. They meet again at a party given by Peggy, Duchess of Groveland, Jack’s godmother. They touch hands and both get a tingle. Okay – that’s enough sexual tension – let’s get down to it.

Jack and Venus go to a spare room and get nekkid. She’s impressed, he’s impressed – he wants to get down to matters right now, but she wants him to wear a condom. He says he will not climax in her, but she still wants the condom. So he gets dressed and goes out to borrow some condoms from one of his randy friends. The friend lends him two condoms and Jack gets back to matters. They have sex with one condom, then they use the other one. Was it enough? Ha! This is a Susan Johnson book. They are just getting started.

Jack and Venus then go at like a couple of energizer bunnies on a Viagra high. He never loses his erection – she never gets sore. And the lack of condoms? He pulls out and ejaculates on her – many times. Given the lack of washing facilities, the ick factor was kicked up several notches.

Jack and Venus meet again and have sex – many times. Then they go to his country retreat and have sex – many, many times including one encounter where he carries her, while they are coupled, down to the river. As he walks, she climaxes twice and I laughed a long time at that mental image.

They go a coming-out party for a sister of one of Jack’s randy friends. Right on the dance floor Jack and Venus want to come – but not out if you get my drift, so they repair to a convenient closet to pull off a quickie, then Venus gets mad at Jack for some reason and dances with other men. Jack begins to feel jealous. Oh no! He has never felt this before, can the rake actually be gulp, in love?!

Next day, they have made up and are back to calling each other four letter words and attempting to break all records for having sex. Right now the book is half over and most books would be deep in the plot by now. But with Legendary Lover we’ve had no plot at all – just Jack deep in Venus. But behold! A plot rears its head!

A pretty little blonde chick named Bella wants Jack for her husband and Bella’s aunt and guardian, Lady Tallent, wants him too. Lady Tallent used to be one of Jack’s lovers and she figures if he would wed Bella, she could be back in his bed. And on the other side of town, Trevor Mitchell, Jack’s cousin and heir, is not happy about Jack’s liason with Venus. Trevor is afraid that Jack will fall in love and get married and produce an heir, cutting Trevor out of the title and all that lovely money. Trevor is sure that if Jack remains unmarried, he’ll dissipate himself to death before he’s thirty.

Does Jack win the lovely and insatiable Venus? Does Trevor get the title? Does Bella get her claws into Jack? How about Lady Tallent? And does anyone really care?

I rated this book Burning, but a more accurate description would be Boring. Jack and Venus are both amoral sex machines without a shred of personality between them. If you want to read a hot book with lots of sex, I suggest Tonight or Never by Dara Joy. It’s as hot as they come, but has characters with charm and personality. And as for Venus and Jack – go away you two, you bother me.