I like to try as many different romance authors as possible, including those who were popular back in the day but aren’t as well-known now. You never know when you might stumble across a gem. Of course, you also never know when you might stumble across a cowpat. That said, standards back in the day were different, and I tried to keep that in mind as I read Nicole Jordan’s Touch Me With Fire. I’ve never read anything by this author before, but I’ve heard her books are steamy, and that seemed like something I’d enjoy. So, here goes.

Eighteen-year-old Blaise St. James is a stunning beauty with long raven tresses, ivory skin and violet eyes. She wants a love match like her late parents’ marriage, so when her aunt pressures her to wed a man she doesn’t like, Blaise waits for her aunt’s carriage to stop at an inn. Then she disguises herself as a servant and runs away. The carriage passed a band of Gypsies (the book’s term) on the road, and since Blaise’s father once befriended the Gypsies, she knows they’ll hide her. The only problem is, at the inn, she accidentally crosses paths with Julian Morrow, Viscount Lynden. He’s completely taken in by her disguise, which is good, but he’s also immediately, intensely smitten with her, which is… bad? good? Blaise can’t decide.

Julian was wounded in the Peninsular War, which left him with a limp and the kind of facial scar that only intensifies his incredible good looks. But that’s far from the only cross he has to bear, because he’s been empty inside since his wife’s death. One stolen kiss from Blaise, though, and he feels like he’s started to live again. So he follows her to the Gypsies’ camp, befriends them all, and lives with them for a week while lusting for Blaise and ignoring her protests as he constantly tries to seduce her into becoming his mistress.

Of course, once he discovers who she is, he’s infuriated, because he nearly ruined a lady’s reputation. Seducing a Gypsy woman was fine. But now that he’s compromised someone of his own class, he blackmails Blaise into marrying him by threatening to have the Gypsies arrested unless she complies. At the same time, he’s seething with outrage that she lied to him and trapped him into marriage. I know, just go along with it. The wedding night is so unpleasant that Blaise runs away again, but that’s the least of the drama ahead.

There’s not much I can say about the plot that couldn’t be predicted from reading this review, so I’ll describe the characters a little more. Blaise is a manic pixie dream girl who does things like stealing horses and sliding down the banisters of Julian’s house. I will say this for the book, when she plans to breed a stolen stallion to her friend’s mare, I expected Julian and Blaise to be uncontrollably aroused by watching the horses mate. But this actually didn’t happen (because they’re uncontrollably aroused all the time – no horses necessary).

As for Julian, he behaves like a colossal hypocrite when he’s not brooding alone and wallowing in guilt over his wife’s death. Blaise tries to coax him out of his pit of despair, usually via sex, though at one point she grows a brain and they have a discussion about how to restore his standing in the community. That was enjoyable and saved the book from a lower grade. But getting back to the sex, while these scenes are plentiful and steamy enough, some phrases stand out oddly, such as “the swollen seat of her need”, “her frantic gyrations” (is she trying to keep a hula hoop in the air?) and “the soft slither of his tongue”, which made me think of a snake.

As for the Gypsies, they’re either fortune-telling, chicken-thieving stereotypes or cardboard props which serve Julian’s needs by encouraging Blaise to marry him and being the entertainment when he hosts a ball. They also have no reaction when Blaise tells them how he threatened to have them arrested. Well, not no reaction, because they keep on bowing to him like Homer Simpson’s drinking bird. The person actually responsible for the wife’s death was an obvious villain but doen’t do much to threaten anyone otherwise, so that’s easily wrapped up.

In summary, I’m glad I tried Touch Me With Fire because I can now cross one more author off my haven’t-read-before list, but if you’re not already a fan of Nicole Jordan, this isn’t likely to change your mind. Long on melodrama and sex, and short on everything else, it isn’t a book I can recommend.