This books is sooo frustrating to read. I think that part that is the most frustrating is the fact that the alleged rake, Rafe feels that he is so perfect, that he has the right to kidnap this woman and tell her that she's a horrible person and that she needs to change. I just didn't get that. Who has the right to do that someone, fiction or not?

He was just such a jerk to her that I couldn't into the romantic aspect of the story. I gave the book to someone else.

I used to really like Johanna Lindsey's books. But this book, like the last one I read, was very disappointing. The characters had no depth. The story line could have been interesting but Lindsey is starting to write more childish in every book. Rafe was not even likeable. Even if his intentions were good he had no reasoning abilities. He should have understood some of her motivation and not constantly jumped to the wrong conclusions. And his self-rightist behavior started getting on my nerves. I started seeing him as the spiteful one.
The heroine wanted someone that would get to know her before claiming to fall in love with her. I don't know what Ophelia was like in the prequel but in this book she had reasonable explanations for most of her actions. No matter what, Rafe continued to think everything Ophelia did was out of malice. Rafe was too intent on changing Ophelia instead of understanding her. Even when she had good reason to be upset Rafe just attributed it to shrew like behavior instead taking responsibility for his own actions. Rafe never even attempted to apologize for his own behavior. Oh he did try to explain his lies away expecting her to take anything he said at face value.
If Ophelia had physical pain Rafe was sympathetic but he did not mind constantly inflicting mental pain. The mental pain is usually the worst. Overall, it was a shallow read. I kept hoping Rafe was going to wake up and change. Being rich and good looking is all well and good but I like a guy that has at least a few good qualities. Not just one that will throw snow balls at me and look for ways to criticize me. When I read a romance, I like the hero to be someone that I could fall in love with. Also, I kept waiting for Ophelia to be vindicated, if not for her actions before the book started, she should have been vindicated for all the things that Rafe wanted to blame her for. That never really happened in this book.

I have ben a Lindsey fan for a few decades, this book did not fail me. It continued the Malory family saga, introducing new characters and bring the reader up to date with the family.

I've read and enjoyed many of Miss Lindsey's books but not this one. The two prevalent storylines, the "goddess beautiful" but hateful heroine and a "kidnapping" storyline are two of my least favorites are they are just distasteful.

I hoped that Miss Lindsey could however redeem these storylines in such a way as to make the storylines palatable. No such luck here. I just could not get over how vindictive, judgmental and stuck on herself that Ophelia was. Being treated badly by your parent growing up is no excuse for being a witch. Ophelia comes off as quite a schemer and very disfunctional.

As to the kidnapping, at the point when Ophelia asks Rafe's Aunt (who he wrangled as chaperone) "I don't want to be here, don't I have any rights", and the Aunt basically said "No dear, you're too young to have any rights" I just quit in disgust.

not recommended-1 star.

This was just a hands down lousy book. She was trying too hard (and unsucessfully) to fit a square into a hole with her unimaginative plot theme. It was utterly awful!!! If you read The Heir, you know exactly where she yanked these two characters from. In The Heir, Ophelia was a very well developed character and In The Devil who Tamed Her, all of a sudden her bad behavior is explained away.. (VERY badly and in such an unbelievable way) and.. tada! new character we can all love and embrace.. I don't think so.. and.. she ruined Rafe too by turning him into an idiot..
Her books have been really disappointing lately but for the most part she has written some really good books worth reading so I'm not giving up on her yet!
If you have to read this book to find out on your own how bad it is then please.. borrow it or buy it used instead