Season for Temptation is Theresa Romain’s first novel, and for a debut it really isn’t bad. It has a love triangle (a premise I enjoy) and some seasonal flair (something I also enjoy at this time of year). What it lacks is a believable conflict.

Julia Herrington is thrilled when her step sister becomes engaged to a Viscount. It’s precisely the sort of success she is hoping for when she has her own season. But when Louisa’s betrothed, Viscount Matheson, comes to visit, Julia likes him a little too much. Try as she might, she can’t help falling in love with Louisa’s fiance.

James (the aforementioned Viscount Matheson) has a delicate family situation on his hands. His sister’s husband died in a scandalous fashion, and he’d like to help her by marrying someone very respectable – as soon as possible. Offering for Louisa seemed like a sensible choice. He met her while she was hiding in a library during a ball, and she’s attractive, respectable, and intelligent. Oddly, when he comes to her home to meet her family and solidify wedding plans, she puts him off. She doesn’t really want to sponsor her sister’s come out (the idea terrifies her), so she’d prefer to delay the wedding until Julia has made her debut. Then James meets Julia, and he just can’t help falling in love with his fiance’s sister. The two of them spend time together – all in a very respectable way – pining for each other all the while.

The romance continues when Julia and Louisa go to town for the holidays. Louisa is invited by James’s family, and she drags Julia along for moral support. James and Julia are – again – thrown together. They both struggle with their guilt and desire.

At this point, it’s obvious where the book is headed, but it gets somewhat bogged down along the way. James love Julia. Julia loves James. Louisa wants to please her family but has no desire to marry James and has no clue how her sister feels about him. It all drags out far longer than it should, particularly when the solution is so obvious, and the primary participants could have reached it themselves if they’d just had a five minute conversation about their feelings:

Louisa: “I don’t love you, James, and I am secretly terrified of becoming a viscount’s wife!”
James: “Oh, well would you mind if I married your sister? Because I’m madly in love with her.”
Julia: “That would so totally work for me.”

Of course they eventually arrive at that point, albeit less efficiently, and only after a silly misunderstanding-perpetrated-by-scheming-family-member plot – which seems to be there only to prolong the page count and the inevitable HEA.

I’m usually a sucker for love triangles. Maybe it was all those Sunfire Romances I read as a teenager, where the heroine was nearly always trying to choose between two competing men. I really like the angst of the situation, which can lead to great sexual tension when it’s done right (anyone else remember Penelope Williamson’s Heart of the West?) – but it has to be believable. Something more compelling than a missing conversation has to drive the hero and heroine apart.

That’s not to say that this is a bad book, because overall I found it a pleasant read. I liked Julia and James, though Julia is definitely on the hoydenish side, and would perhaps be too cute and full of herself for some. I also liked the Herrington family – particularly Julia’s sharp-tongued and pragmatic aunt. And there is some fun Christmas atmosphere (an improvement over the Zebra holiday romance that I read last year, which was not very festive at all).

Brilliant it isn’t. But I’ve read far worse debuts than Season for Temptation. The characters are promising and the plot needs some work. I’ve read a lot worse…and a lot better.