Silk Is for Seduction (Dressmakers Series #1)

Silk Is for Seduction (Dressmakers Series #1) - Chase threw out a challenge with her heroine in this book: a tough, shrewd, conniving, consummate manipulator named Marcelline, who was extremely hard to like at first. Fortunately I stuck with the book and by the end, not only grew to love Marcelline for her vulnerable side, but to feel that the hero was not quite up to her weight. Dress designer Marcelline is after the Duke of Clevedon with one goal: to convince him that her shop should make the dresses for his future bride. But her extremely effective schemes to get his attention backfire, when they discover they’re very attracted to each other. As events transpire to involve Clevedon more and more in Marcelline’s life, responsible Marcelline discovers what it is to have someone she can turn to and depend on -- but he’s somebody she can never have.Chase delivers her usual witty dialog and gorgeous love scenes, turning what would be tedious lusting monologue in most romances into sensual beauty:“With every turn he grew more intensely aware of the warmth of her waist under his gloved hand, of the way the heat made her creamy skin glow a tantalizing pink under the dewy sheen, and the way the heat enhanced her scent: the fragrance of her skin mingled with the jasmine she wore so lightly. It was a mere hint of scent in a warm and crowded room thick with them but her was aware, keenly aware, only of hers… At last she looked up at him. He saw the heat glowing in her face, the throb of the pulse at her neck, and he was aware, without needing to look precisely there, of the rapid fall and rise of her bosom.”~~“He trailed his mouth alone her cheek, to her ear and down. Her scent rose from her neck. and all the air he breathed as her and all he knew then was her.”~~“She moved his hands away, hers lightly brushing his. Glove against glove, that was all. Yet she felt the shock of contact as though skin had touch skin and the sensation traveled the length of her body.She was acutely aware of the broad chest under the expensive layers of neckcloth and waistcoat and shirt. Al the same, her hands neither faltered not trembles. She’d had years of practice. Years of holding cards steady while her heart pounded.”Although it’s easy to see what Marcelline sees in Clevedon, and they’re well matched by the end, he’s just a bit of a let down as a hero. She’s so intriguing that she simply outshines him. It’s not a major flaw, just kept this from being quite on the same level of amazing as some of Chase’s other books.It looks like there’ll be stories for Marcelline’s two sisters; I confess to being far more interested in Clevedon’s ertswhile bride Clara, who gets a great makeover from Marcelline and really comes into her own. I hope we’ll see her again.