A Passion for Him (Georgian)

Raised by an uncaring father in loneliness except for her friend the gypsy stable boy Colin, six years ago, Amelia Benbridge life turned upside down when her odious father was proven to be a criminal and her beloved Colin died saving her life. The only good to come out of that tragic period was Amelia was reunited with her long lost assumed dead sister Marie and her brother-in-law, a pirate, Christopher St. John (see A PASSION FOR THE GAME for their love story).

Now in 1780 Amelia is expected to marry the kindhearted Lord Ware, but her heart remains with Colin. However, to her shock at a gala she finds herself attracted to a white masked man who seems to only stare at her regardless of where she is in the ballroom. When they meet he remains secretive, but steals a kiss, which ignites her long ebbed passion as she tingles like she did when Colin kissed her. What she does not know is who the masked man is as Colin survived the incident and has since become a spy who still dreams of being forever with his Amelia. He also knows that is not possible as he remains beneath her so he rationalizes to himself that he stays near her to protect her from an enemy who has a score to settle with the Benbridge family, but cannot stop himself from kissing her and more.

This is a terrific Georgian romance starring an interesting woman who has known much tragedy and loneliness in her life and the man who she loved with all her soul. Colin is a hero as he risked his life for her once before and willingly places himself in danger and risks his undercover espionage mission to keep his beloved safe. Readers will have a passion for Sylvia Day's fine historicals.

Harriet Klausner

A Passion for Him, Sylvia Day's third installment of her Georgian Historical series, is a wonderfully sensual and incredibly sexy book. I read this book when it was first released in 2007 and I loved it; when given the opportunity revisit Colin and Amelia romance, there was no way I was going to pass it up. I highly recommended A Passion for Him six years ago and I highly recommend it now.

One needs not have to worry about reading the previous books in this series, A Passion for Him can be a stand-alone book, however, once you read one of Sylvia Day's books - you have to read them all. She has a way of drawing her readers into the story and captivating them with sympathetic characters and seductive sex scenes. It's no wonder that she is a Bestselling author.

Unrequited love is one of my favorite themes and Sylvia Day nails it with this story. A hero who was once feared dead, a woman who was never to love another and a chance meeting at a ball - I just loved a Passion for Him!

Amelia Benbridge seems to have everything a woman could desire. Her upcoming marriage to the Earl of Ware ensures her a place amongst the creme de la creme of society despite her father's shameful captivity. It's not a love match, but Amelia and Ware are good friends. He fully understands that she's never stopped loving Colin, her childhood sweetheart, and still mourns his death but he also believes that they're perfect for each other - after all, many marriages have started with far less than friendship.

Colin Mitchell has loved Amelia for as long as he can remember but the simple fact that he was a stable boy makes any relationship between them futile. Amelia's misguided belief that Colin died presents him with the opportunity to slip away and `make something' of himself and then return to her as a new man - one worthy of her love and hopefully the title of her husband. There's just a few glitches in this plan. Amelia's about to marry another man and she has no idea of his true identity.

Amelia's content with her engagement to the Earl of Ware. They may not be in love but they're comfortable with each other. She's just never felt that special spark with him that she'd had with Colin and doesn't believe any man will ever inspire her to lust again. That is until she notices a masked man watching her at a ball - all of a sudden long dead feelings are roused and she can't understand why that would be. Colin's very careful to keep his true identity a secret. He'd found himself in a bit of trouble while in France just before he departed for England. He has a price on his head and he fears what may happen to Amelia if she's caught in the middle of his problems. He struggles with his desire to remain near her and the necessity to ensure her safety by leaving the area, but that decision is taken out of his hands when Amelia spots him as he tries leaving town and follows him. What follows is a sizzling affair with her mystery lover. How will she react when she learns that her phantom lover is none other than her childhood sweetheart Collin? And can the lovers share a life together free of worry about Collin's past?

Once again Sylvia Day gives readers a book that encompasses all the passion, intrigue and endearing characters that we've come to expect in her storylines. I couldn't help but feel an immediate attachment to Collin and Amelia and had my fingers crossed for a happily-ever-after for them. At the same time I really felt bad for the Earl of Ware. I loved getting the chance to revisit characters from ASK FOR IT and PASSION FOR THE GAME. Now I'll be on the lookout for DON'T TEMPT ME which is due out in March 2008. Sylvia Day never fails to write stories that can transport me to into the characters lives for the extent of the tale and they often live on long after I've finished reading. If you haven't picked up a Sylvia Day book yet then you're missing out.

Chrissy Dionne (courtesy of Romance Junkies)

Colin and Amelia were young teens in Passion for the Game. Their story was a secondary one in that book but so emotional and full of angst. Now it is six years later. Amelia believes Colin had been dead all this time because he tried saving her and was shot when she was sixteen. But Colin is not dead. Feeling inadequate because he was her father's gypsy groomsman, he went away to make something of himself so he could be worthy and equal of her love. Colin has made money and has finesse and is coming back to England to regain his "soul." But before he can, he is caught up in a murder, which he is believed responsible for. Now he is on the run and can't come and take Amelia.
Amelia still holds the young gypsy boy in her heart. Even though he is dead, he will always be her one true love. But one night at a masked ball, she sees another man who sends her heart racing. He is the only one since Colin who makes her feel this way.
Of course we all know who the masked man is and between these two, the love they had for each other is more mature and oh so good! Some reader may find it a bit funny that Colin keeps wearing a mask every time he comes in contact with Amelia, because he has to keep his identity a secret. But that doesn't stop him from showing how much Amelia means to him. Colin feels if he doesn't have her, he will die and I tended to believe it myself.
The whole masked man scenario doesn't take away from this wonderful and passionate love story. Sylvia Day can sure write some hot and scorching sex scenes! And don't worry, because when Amelia finds out who her masked man is, she gives it to Colin good for lying and staying away from her.
A Passion for Him shows that Sylvia is historical romance's true shining star!

Katiebabs

Passion for the Game

My Thoughts

Sylvia Day has a passion - a passion for writing exciting and heartfelt romances that really grip the reader and force you to hang on for the adventurous ride in which her stories take you.

Colin and Amelia are a perfect match. They both try to do what is right, and what they think is expected of them, and (more often than not) to their own detriment.
Both stubborn and unwilling to yield - except for in the bedroom! - what ensues is a roller coaster of emotion, passion, and misguided sensibilities.

Well written and with great characters that you want to hate but ending up falling in love with, A Passion For Him is another success.

A great story, great characters, great sex!
4 stars ;]

"A Passion For Him" by Sylvia Day. I liked this book very much & highly recommend it. It was sensual and interesting with likeable characters. *Spoiler* In fact, I really liked Lord Ware to the point of almost wishing the heroine would have him instead of the Hero. That's not a bad thing to have more than one rich & attractive man in love with you. Sylvia Day is one of my favorites, and I also particularly enjoyed reading these by her: "Ask For It", "Pride and Pleasure", "Seven Years To Sin"; "Passion For The Game", "The Stranger I Married".

This book is the sequel to "Passion For The Game" which was a book which had potential but which I found disappointing in many areas. This book is different in some ways but still falls somewhat short of its potential.

Amelia Benbridge is the half-sister of Maria, the heroine of the previous book, sand we learned something of Amelia's story in "Passion For The Game". In that story we saw how Amelia had fallen in love with one of the stable boys, Colin Mitchell, who tried to discourage her because of the differences in their stations, with Amelia as a Viscount's daughter. In the end she saw Colin killed and thus the youngsters' romance was over and Amelia turned to the Earl of Ware, another childhood friend and one who is honourable and caring.

In this story Amelia is on the cusp of becoming engaged to Ware when she finds herself being observed by a mystery gentleman at a masked ball. There's something unusual about the man and she finds herself drawn to him, engineering another meeting and eventually chasing after him and finding herself in an inn with him. However the Count Montoya, despite being hugely attracted to Amelia, is involved in a complicated spying plot where he is attempting to track down Cartland, a double-crossing agent who wants to kill him. Not only that, he is also her childhood sweetheart Colin who strived for many years to make something of himself so that he could become worthy of her. Amelia seems to react surprisingly badly against this revelation and the final third of the book follows her as she vacillates about how she feels about Colin, alongside a rather damp-squib spying plot that never really gets going.

Although an enjoyable read in some ways, this book did fall short in a lot of areas. The characters seemed rather one-dimensional, the historical accuracy was pretty loose, particularly in terms of dialogue and behaviour, and the overall plot was a bit thin for a book of this length, bulked out by sex scenes. The fact that Colin managed to get himself a Spanish Count's title and then became a member of the British aristocracy is laughable; perhaps Amelia and her family don't mind that he's really a stable boy but he would hardly be able to move in polite society without the lifetime's learning of behaviour and speech. The author's general writing style is good but her plots and characterisation tend to let the stories down and this is rather a shame.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, [...] © Helen Hancox 2008

A+++!!! I honestly wasn't sure if Day could surpass the previous novel in the series, "Passion for the Game," but this book was just as incredible as the last! I am a HUGE sucker for the "childhood friends turning to romance" plot, especially when it involves huge social class and racial barriers (hero is a half-Gypsy former stable boy). Although this book is a strong stand-alone read, I would recommend reading "A Passion for the Game" beforehand just because almost all of the characters introduced from that novel re-appear in this one. Day also has a wonderful way of writing from every character's perspective, fleshing out realistic multi-dimensional personalities for everyone.

Why I consider this a 5-star read:
- Colin and Amelia's story was as heart-wrenching as expected, I was already anticipating their tale from "Passion for the Game," and was not disappointed!
- Lots of hero jealousy here, and yes, there is a "misunderstanding," but the author does not heavily rely on this plot device to tell her story.
- The love scenes were top quality, realistic and VERY sensual (without being offensive).
- Secondary characters were very well-written, and I especially liked how Lord Ware's character was represented... won't give anything away, but if you liked him in the previous novel, you will like him even more in this one. The heroine's choice of the "right" guy isn't as easy and straight-forward in this book as it is in most other romance novels, which is what makes this story (and its conclusion) much more meaningful and memorable =)
- The plot was very well-paced and nicely balanced with the proper blend of romance, secondary characters, suspense, and of course, the extremely sensual love scenes ;)
- Now, I am absolutely dying to read Simon's story,(does anyone else think the Simon on that cover looks absolutely *divine*? ^_^) I believe he may end up with Lysette Roussou (maybe, maybe not?), another fascinating character that was introduced in this story, and I can't wait to read her story, too! Just don't want to wait all the way 'til April... grr.

Honestly haven't read a "great" romance in months, so this one was a very refreshing and wonderful experience. Other reads I would recommend with similar plots are Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas, When Angels Fall by Meagan McKinney, Paradise by Judith McNaught (contemporary), All Things Beautiful by Cathy Maxwell, and of course, Passion for the Game by Sylvia Day (which introduces all the main characters from this story).

Happy reading!

I love Sylvia's historical romance stories! This one is no exception. A Passion For Him is full of drama and so intense! The storyline is addictive and realistic to the time period! Love love loved it! And a tip for you while reading- have a spare pear of undies ladies! Count Montoya is hot hot hot

I really enjoyed this story. The dialogue during the hero and heroine's love scenes was wonderful. The heroine (Colin) is so handsome and sexy. The hero (Amelia) is so ready and willing. This is a heart felt story. Childhood lovers reconnect (my fav). The sex scenes are hot and very descriptive. I gave it a four because I felt there were to many characters from this series being introduced in this one story. I plan on reading all the rest of the books to this series.

Excellent story about Amelia and Colin separated when younger so Colin can prove himself to her. There is heartache, passion, love, sex, danger, suspense. Extremely passionate characters and a good story line. Don't miss out on reading this one.

It is a combination of Wuthering Heights and Count of Monte Cristo but very sexy, I love how he hides Colins hides his faces from Amelia. Anyone know if there is another romance novel with a man hiding his face from the woman he loves? Please let me know.

Contains spoilers. I would have given this 2.5 stars if I could.

While this book sounded far more promising than its predecessor (Passion For The Game), it, unfortunately, failed to overcome some characteristic weaknesses in Sylvia Day's writing style (a writing that may,perhaps,be better suited to the short story format, if 'Lucien's Gamble', one of three stories in, the preposterously titled, 'Bad Boys Ahoy!' is anything to go by). There are some scenes between Colin/Montoya and Amelia that are movingly passionate, at once quite eloquent and titillating, and one wishes the book had more of those, rather than have its energies wasted on tedious sub-plots. I think her publishers should wean Sylvia Day off second rate spy-plots,or at least, require her to keep such irksome conceits to a minimum, preventing them from overshadowing her story's lovers and their passion. Furthermore, a decent editor would have pointed out to the writer that one simply does not break the flow of an all too important sex scene (the long-awaited moment of consummation of Amelia's and Colin's passion) to prattle on about the shenanigans of other characters (a medley of relatives, friends, employers, French spies, British traitors and what not, setting after the hero and/or the heroine). Such a stylistic faux-pas can irritate and annoy the reader, while it serves as evidence of a writer's inability to find the right pace for her narrative. Nor should a writer be allowed to introduce at such tedious length the couple of her next book in the series. Multi-perspectivalism in a narrative is desirable, provided one has the required skill to handle it, but I'm afraid there's no evidence of it in Ms Day's writing. Serious faults in narrative pace at such crucial junctures in the story, make one think that Ms Day was in a rush to evacuate the scene of Colin and Amelia's love and passion. As if she did not trust them to sustain our interest for the entire length of the book, and had to stuff her story with a plethora of sub-plots instead. The result is an overburdened and imbalanced narrative, where the sub-plots fail to generate the excitement and suspense they were supposed to (such defects were also evident in Passion For the Game). Sylvia Day has undoubtedly a flair for writing sensual, sexy scenes, yet this book reads as if she's embarrassed by that very flair. Her writing refrains from expressing the immanent intricacies of passion, while concentrating on the inessential clutter that surrounds her lovers, and the reader is left with a passion awkwardly unexplored and a writer who gestures at what she cannot deliver. There are other things that mar the book as well, like the fact that Colin is a 'gypsy'. If an element of such magnitude and seriousness is to be introduced in the course of a story, then it should do some work in that story; one would expect a fact like that to play a major part in the dramatisation of the causes that violated the lovers' love, and of the elements that conspired to force them into an unhappy and unfulfilled life, but Ms Day merely throws the 'gypsy' card into the concoction (like handing the reader a list of facts about Colin), leaving it so undeveloped that it quickly becomes redundant. If the fact that the hero is a 'gypsy' is to add nothing extra to the fact that he's a stable boy, and hence already a victim of a rigid social hierarchy, nor is to add any extra dimensions to the enormous odds stacked against the lovers, then why introduce it into the story? It's always a sign of poor taste, bad writing and bad judgment to introduce a serious issue (social prejudice, exclusion and persecution of the Roma) only to treat it superficially. Furthermore, given that so much narrative space was wasted in endless and boring sub-plots, it is strange that the heroine's reaction to Colin's resurrection was dealt in such a slipshod manner and crammed into a few pages. Amelia's reaction was, apart from poorly written and psychologically naive, also ahistorical and illogical. Ms Day would have the reader believe that a 19th c. daughter of a Viscount would have great difficulty in understanding why her father's stable boy would want to make something of himself, and remove a few obstacles between them, before openly claiming his love. But having a heroine understand the man she professes to love to destruction, would have immediately highlighted with flashing neon lights) the major defect and weakness at the heart of this book's plot. Which is, of course, none other than the conceit of the hero's playing dead for several years. All the explanations the writer has provided, as to why Colin did not let the heroine and/or his beloved uncle know that he was alive and well, rung extremely hollow and ultimately damaged the overall dynamic of the main couple. It is puzzling that Day did not opt for the tried and trusted formula - a formula which a skilful writer can expand and make exciting- of having the presumed dead suffer from traumatic amnesia. That would have freed Day's hand, she could still present us with a touching heroine in a state of permanent mourning for her lost first love, a heroine who mourns her love even through her decision to marry another, and then have Colin return from the abode of the dead in the nick of time, without having to force on the reader some of the most terrible syllogisms one has ever read in a book of this kind. But perhaps, Day wanted to explore a darker side of passion, say the voyeurism of the hero (who takes perverse pleasure in following Amelia's courtship from afar) and have him claim his love when realising he could not let her go. But then the story would have had to be refocused, with characterisation taking a darker hue, the subsequent revelations handled differently, both in respect of the hero's logic and motivation, and the heroine's reactions to his 'resurrection'. As it stands, the narrative forces the hero into a string of arguments full of holes, into a deluge of unconvincing and specious explanations as to why he did not let Amelia (or his uncle, for that matter) know that he was alive (as if it would have been that impossible to let them know he was alive, without having to tell them what he was involved in). All in all, the central conceit rather than provide us with a fresh take on the 'lover presumed dead' theme, defeated the story, by making all reasons Colin could offer sound implausible, forced and artificial, and Colin himself feel at once callous, inane and presumptuous. Pity, because without this major defect at the heart of the book's logic, we could have had a very passionate story of lasting love between two very interesting characters. As it is, it reads more like a spot-the-holes-the-size-of-a-canyon quiz.

I LOVED this book!! I have been furiously trying to catch up since I've discovered Sylvia Day and this one did not dissappoint. The chemistry between Amelia and Montoya/Colin was HOT! This is a great "series" that can still stand on its own. I cannot wait to read Simon's story! I wonder if Ware will get his own, I felt SO sorry for him!

I am not going to do a rendition, I see this has already been done. I thought this book was good. It had romance, love and scorchingly hot pages with just the right touch of passion. I am looking forward to more Sylvia Day books. I highly recommend this book, its a keeper

I loved Passion for the Game but this sequel was disappointing. The characters are boring and unappealing, especially Amelia. It could be that I'm used to heroines who are spirited and take charge of their lives.
I didn't like the flashbacks, but that's just me.

I recently bought my first Sylvia Day book, and I loved her writing. This was my second book, and it was just as great as the first one I read, the prequel to this book, Passion For The Game. You don't need to read the first one to enjoy this book. They each stand on their own. Can't wait until the next book with Simon Quinn comes out.