The Fall of a Saint

The Sinner and the Saint #2

by Christine Merrill

The Only Woman Who Can Make Him Repent!

Honorable - and handsome to boot! - Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, has earned his nickname "The Saint." But the ton would shudder if they knew the truth. Because, thrust into a world of debauchery, this saint has turned sinner!

With the appearance of fallen governess Madeline Cranston - carrying his heir - St. Aldric looks for redemption through a marriage of convenience. But the intriguing Madeline is far from a dutiful duchess, and soon this saint is indulging in the most sinful of thoughts...while his new wife vows to make him pay for his past.

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Regency, Harlequin, Harlequin Historical

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 28, 2014

About the author

Christine Merrill has wanted to be an author for as long as she can remember. But one thing stood in her way: touch typing.

Six weeks spent on an IBM Selectric in her Sophomore year of high school proved that she would never be able to produce one readable page of manuscript, much less several hundred.

Twenty years passed, and she found ways to pass the time: marrying her high school sweetheart; having two sons; and taking an assortment of jobs in professional theater costume shops, including a miserable year and a half spent styling wigs for a certain hamburger-selling clown (who shall remain nameless, since I don't want to incur the wrath of a major American corporation) and a couple of weeks working on a TV movie with one of the sexiest men alive (whose name I'm happy to drop: Mark Harmon!).

During that time, someone invented word processing, and a reliable spell checker.

Christine returned to her childhood dream, only to discover that there was more to the whole writing thing than accurate typing. The next years were spent learning to tell stories that people might want to read, and trying to find someone who wanted to buy them. Her chance came when she won the RWA's Golden Heart Competition for unpublished manuscripts. The winning story, soon to be known as THE INCONVENIENT DUCHESS, was bought by the contest judges, the delightful editors at Mills & Boon, in Richmond, Surrey.

Christine is now busy writing her fifth book, and is more than slightly jealous that her manuscripts get to visit England, while she stays home in Wisconsin

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star

Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric made a mistake. After all, he was very drunk and trying to prove himself. Everyone makes mistakes. It's just that his was pretty spectacular. Instead of going to the room of a willing barmaid, he stumbled into Madeline Cranston's room and slept with her. And then got caught.

The problem, of course, is that Madeline is a gentlewoman, a governess. But, even scandals like that can be taken care of. A generous settlement tends to do the trick. Until it turns out that Madeline is carrying a child. Then, there are no other options for St.Aldric save marriage.

The "Saint" and his reluctant wife will have to learn to live with each other and, maybe even find happiness in that life.

When I requested this title on NetGalley, I did so based on the blurb. I do love it when a duke falls for the governess (always was a fan of Cinderella type stories), and it looked like this book fit the bill.

Unfortunately, after the first chapter or so, I had really hard time finding anything likable about it.

Everything I'm about to talk about is revealed in the first couple of chapters so it's not a spoiler, and I really think it's important to mention.

You see, the duke had mumps several months before the story started, and the general conclusion was he is infertile. So, he started drinking and tumbling every loose woman that crossed his path hoping he will impregnate one (the mindset alone of making an innocent child a bastard just to prove that his mighty ducal line won't die out sits wrong with me - a lot). And then he made the mistake and went into the wrong room. For all he knows he raped her. It turns out she thought he was her lover who died in the war. It is still wrong. Just wrong.

And then there's Madeline. I didn't like her either. If she accepted his marriage proposal, she should have at least tried to get along with him - they were going to have a child, and she was doing her best to make his life as miserable as possible.

All in all, the book sounded really promising, and I did find the duke's half-brother to be an interesting character, but I simply couldn't get past that beginning.

ARC received from Harlequin via NetGalley.

[Roz ~ My Written Romance]

I cannot in any conscience give this a star. I couldn't even get through 10% of the book.

Any relationship that begins the way this one does is never going to be healthy.

Note to the hero: Dude, going on a 4 month bender and rooting your way around England in an attempt to see if you are still potent is no excuse to stumble into the wrong room and force yourself on a sleeping woman. That's rapey, every way to Sunday. Oh and acting like a silly kid who's knocked over a vase just makes me hate you more.

Note to the heroine: RUN...RUN AWAY NOW. He forced himself on you, got you pregnant, and now you're the one whose reputation needs saving?????

This made me so freaking stabby.

[Kimberly · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 11%.

The blurb didn’t lead me to expect what I got. Both the hero and heroine were unlikeable (the hero in particular ticked me off) and the book’s beginning left me cringing so much I have no desire to keep going. Perhaps it improves, but the story started off with the heroine pregnant after being raped by the hero. I was willing to stick that out and see where the story went, except it immediately started making excuses for said hero because he’s normally “such a nice guy” and he was drunk at the time (oh, and wanted to prove he could sire children so he was trying to knock up prostitutes). Hard pass.

[Caz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've given this a C+ at AAR, so 3.5 stars.

I should alert anyone thinking of reading this book that it opens onto a situation which many may find off-putting, unpleasant or just plain unacceptable. The story of The Fall of a Saint hinges around the fact that the heroine, a respectable governess, is pregnant as the result of a sexual encounter that took place at an inn, when the inebriated Duke of St. Aldric mistook her room for that of another woman, got into her bed and had sex with her while she was half asleep.

As with the companion book, The Greatest of Sins, Ms Merrill has chosen to tackle a difficult subject, and on the whole I think she handles it well. Was what St. Aldric did rape? Or does the fact that the heroine didn’t refuse him mean otherwise? I understand it’s a contentious issue and that there will be people who don’t agree with my take on it.

The events of The Fall of a Saint begin a few months after the close of the previous book. In it, the physician hero returned from life at sea to discover that he was half-brother to a duke, the powerful and respected Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, a man of such impeccable reputation, generosity and honour that he is known throughout society as the “Saint”. Near the end of that book, St. Aldric is laid low by a severe case of the mumps which his brother tells him may possibly leave him infertile, although there is no way of being sure.

In the intervening months, it appears that St. Aldric has been on a massive bender, drinking and whoring in some sort of desperate impulse to prove his virility, until one night, while stupendously drunk, he mistakenly enters Madeleine Cranston’s room and has sex with her. Somehow, romantic heroes never seem to suffer from brewer’s droop as it seems no amount of alcohol can get between them and their hard-ons – although this is clearly not such a fortunate thing in St. Aldric’s case, because Madeleine’s screams bring people running and they are discovered. She bolts before St. Aldric sobers up enough to offer restitution, but some weeks later, confronts him in the street to tell him that she is pregnant with his child.

Right off the bat, we’re into tricky territory. At first, the reader is privy only to St. Aldric’s sense of self-loathing for his lack of self-control and his disgust at having (as he sees it) forced himself upon a woman; but despite his overwhelming shame, he cannot help but being glad at the news that he has fathered a child. But when we get to see Madeleine’s side of the story, the events of that night are presented in a different light, as she confesses to herself that she had not been unwilling, remembering how she had been dreaming of her former lover and believed she had been welcoming him to her bed, only realising her mistake when it was too late. Yet, had she really not known the man for whom she’d reached out was flesh-and-blood and not just a figment of her imagination?

The real meat of the book is found in the way St. Aldric and Maddie interact once she has informed him of her condition. She had hoped to obtain a financial settlement which would enable her to bring up her child in comfort, but St. Aldric is not willing to allow his offspring – possibly his heir – to be brought up out of wedlock. He tells Maddie that he will make no demands upon her and that she can have whatever she wants, and proposes a marriage of convenience.

Maddie is surprised – but in her anger and bitterness at the way her life has suddenly been turned upside down, accepts, with the intention of making her future husband’s life a misery.

She makes an estimable beginning, insisting on a lavish wedding, a massive new wardrobe, and generally trying to force him out of his habitual sang-froid by acting in as contrary a manner as possible. Unfortunately, all that happens is that she looks increasingly childish and her attempts backfire as St. Aldric proves himself the perfect gentleman at every turn.

When, more because she knows it will provoke him than because she believes it to be true, Maddie refuses to accept her husband’s word that he will not touch her or enter her rooms without permission, he coldly suggests they remove to his country estate. The duke and duchess’ apartments are at opposite ends of the house and they will therefore be able to avoid each other without too much effort.

Arriving at the palatial residence, Maddie is both impressed and intimidated, feeling ill-equipped to be the lady of such a manor. But it’s clear that St. Aldric’s staff and the people from the estate and surrounding villages all adore him, and Maddie begins to wonder if perhaps she has erred in judging his character simply from the event which bound them together. She has seen nothing since that night to suggest he is anything but a considerate and conscientious man, or that leads her to believe he will attempt to foist unwelcome attentions upon her. It’s also obvious to her that St. Aldric is not at all comfortable at Aldric House, gradually coming to the understanding that the house has never been a true home to him, and glimpsing an unexpected vulnerability lying behind her husband’s polished exterior.

Although the initial premise of the story is a distasteful one, I think the book does have things to recommend it, not least of which is the way that both St. Aldric and Maddie grow as characters. She is determined to make him regret his drunken actions for the rest of their lives, but there is a part of her that feels guilty for the fact that she didn’t refuse him her bed, which only serves to add fuel to the heat of her anger. But Maddie gradually comes to realise that anger like that can only prove destructive in the end, and to see that she has to let go of it lest it embitter her forever. St. Aldric has not only to come to terms with the fact that a wife is a person and not just another accoutrement he can order about at will, but also to become a man who can accept his own failings and those of others. In The Greatest of Sins he’s the man who has everything; a near-perfect life and an unblemished reputation – in fact, he’s almost too perfect. He has to hit rock-bottom and start to climb his way out of the mire in order to become more of a balanced human being, one with flaws just like everyone else. My main criticism of the story is to do with something that happens around three-quarters of the way through when Ms Merrill throws a spoke in the works of Maddie and St. Aldric’s burgeoning reconciliation. St. Aldric’s passive-aggressive reaction to events, while perhaps in keeping with his vow that Maddie can have and do whatever she wants, nonetheless feels more like a brattish tantrum than a grown man’s response to a perceived threat. Given the way their relationship begins and all the obstacles they have to overcome in order to reach the point at which they’re ready to move forward together, this particular bump in the road seemed completely unnecessary.

In spite of that, however, The Fall of a Saint kept me interested and entertained. It isn’t always comfortable to read, the situation is messy and the emotions are often unpleasant, but that only serves to add a degree of realism to the story. While related to The Greatest of Sins, it’s not necessary to have read it in order to understand this story – which I think is the better book of the two.

[Tin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received this ARC via Netgalley. Thank you to Christine Merrill and Harlequin for the opportunity. Yes, this is an honest review.

* * *

There is a certain irony to Michael Poole's life: he has devoted himself to goodness and to being the exact opposite of his parents, but an illness and the poor choices he makes soon after finds him in the exact situation his parents were in. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a spouse who has devoted her life to making his life miserable. But Michael cannot blame Madeline for her hatred of him. He had taken advantage of her, and, to make matters worse, he was too drunk to remember it.

Because of Michael's mistake, Madeline lost her position as governess, as well as her professional reputation, and now finds herself pregnant with Michael's child. When she decided to seek him out, she was only expecting some monetary restitution, but Michael offers her marriage instead.

Mixed blessing. Joyful sadness. Cruel kindness. This is a novel of contradictory and complicated emotions and ideas. For Michael Poole, nothing is ever simple or free anymore. He has to live with the consequences of the terrible choices that he made after he had recovered from mumps. Even his recovery was not without any side effects: he was told that he might not ever father a child. To have Maddie at his doorstep, announcing that she is pregnant with his child is a source of great happiness for Michael -- but it is also the source of his greatest sadness. Because what he did to Maddie was a big mistake -- an unforgivable mistake -- and he is willing to sacrifice himself and his happiness, and devote his entire life to making her comfortable and giving their child everything in his power to give.

I first met Michael in Samuel and Evie's story, and I was in awe of this man who epitomised what it means to be a gentleman. When his near-perfect life takes an unexpected turn and he contracts mumps as an adult, and then gets jilted by his fiancee (Evie), I saw it as a test of Michael's character: would he rise above the setbacks he is experiencing? Sadly, Michael failed the test miserably, and he falls from saintly heights to become ... human.

His story begins from this, the lowest depths Michael has ever been and he is determined to make right of the situation. It does not help that Maddie is reluctant to accept Michael's help or to trust Michael's intentions. From the minute she accepted Michael's proposal, Maddie knew she would make things very difficult and very unpleasant for him. She was really determined to make him pay for what happened to her. But Michael was already sorry, and Maddie didn't see this.

He hid the flinch. With the evil smile she wore, he could imagine what she wished them to say. She wanted choruses of high-pitched voices accusing him of actions he could not defend. And doing it in front of what seemed to be half of London.
- loc 462

I wished Maddie had known Michael before his illness, and seen how wonderful he was. I wondered how differently their love story would have turned out if they had met under different circumstances -- I think they would have been really happy. But that is not Michael and Maddie's story, for they would never had met on that life: Michael is a duke and Maddie was a governess, with a less-than impeccable background.

This is their story. And the problem is, Maddie didn't know Michael before. She only knows of the drunken Michael who came to her room and took advantage of her in her sleep. She lost her independence, her job, her reputation -- her life as she knew it. And, more importantly, she lost confidence in herself. She began to doubt her own actions that night. Was she willing? Did she innately know it wasn't just a dream of her former lover? Her anger towards Michael is partly a reflection of her anger towards herself, and it's a terrible place to be in, which is why I understand why she can't help but lash out at Michael. But, instead of getting satisfaction or healing, her actions make the wounds fester and deepen even more, and she isn't any happier now with the choices that she is making.

Michael is resigned to his current life, which is very familiar to him: his parents led a similar one and were happy in each other's unhappiness. It is an apt superimposition of lives: that he and Maddie would decamp from London to Aldricshire, the seat of the Dukes of St. Aldric, and a place full of unhappy memories for Michael. The house is a story in itself -- with its labyrinthine rooms and separate wings for the duke and duchess. It was the story of his parents' lives and now it is the story of his life. Would he and Maddie turn out like his parents? Would his own child experience the same isolation and alienation that he felt as a child? Michael wishes he could change things, but he needs a willing partner if he is to succeed. He understands Maddie's enmity, because he knows he deserves it.

It had given him a sort of sick pleasure to see Madeline stunned to silence by the opulence of her surroundings. But in this house, what other kind of pleasure could there ever be but an unhealthy one> With her trunks full of satins, and her horrible screeching birds and sad wastes of horseflesh, she had thought it possible that he could be shamed, or shocked, or even annoyed. What a silly little girl she was.

It was a pity she had not met his mother. The woman had been a master at that game even before little Madeline was born.
- loc 1081

I flinched reading about Maddie's anger and cringed at Michael's dispassion and disinterest -- and I wondered how Merrill will solve this quandary her characters find themselves in. We've read so many stories about marriages of (in)convenience, but Merrill really pushes the ticket by showing us just how inconvenient and terrible it is to marry someone who isn't completely willing. Merrill also shows us the gradual process that characters go through to make things work. In the end, the question we ask is, is love possible in such a circumstance? Can we gain redemption if we seek it out?

This was an engaging and riveting read, full of all the things that makes us human: pride, fallibility, error, etc. We see the struggle of two people, caught in a difficult situation, and how they move forward. The theme of recovery is evident in this story and it is the goal the Michael and Maddie are both working towards -- but using very different approaches. They want to return to their normal selves, but I wonder if that is ever possible. Every experience changes us and there is no looking back, only forward. It's a lesson everyone must learn some time in their lives and so do Michael and Maddie.

Christine Merrill wraps up this story in a heart-wrenching way and, in the end, we find out whether a saint can rise after he has fallen.

The Fall of a Saint is the second part of Christine Merrill's The Sinner and the Saint series. It will be released on March 1, 2014.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one, provided by the publisher through netgalley, was a rather enjoyable interlude. Nothing special, but rather entertaining in any case.

It starts off in a way some readers might not appreciate, but this is not a viciously horrible attack, and both the hero and heroine show themselves to be rather more grown-up than the start might suggest, and some parts of it are quite different from your average romance, so it keeps it moving along. It's quite predictable, but it's not unpleasantly so, and everything comes right in the end.

I rather enjoyed it, to be honest, even if I honestly have trouble remembering all the details..

3 stars. I liked it.

[Laura J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uneven

The story starts off with an “accidental” rape and two characters that were hard to like or understand. And yet the story was fascinating in that it was so different from other romances (which is not necessarily a good thing). When the heroine realizes that being contrary and bitter is not working for her, the story actually was pleasant. And then the hero once more becomes an ass with no understanding of the woman he has been living with for months.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book with an interesting beginning. This picks up a couple months after The Greatest of Sins, which was the story of Michael's illegitimate half brother. Several months earlier, after recovering from a bout of adult mumps, Michael believes he will be unable to have children. He copes by getting drunk and staying that way for several months. During that time he had lost his way at an inn while attempting to find the room of the barmaid he'd made an assignation with. Instead, he ended up in Maddie's room, where he had sex with her before she awoke fully and fought him off. Because of it she lost her job as a governess and fled the inn in shame. Now she has shown up at his home because she is pregnant and needs his help. Rather than just giving her money and sending her away, Michael offers to marry her, giving the baby his name and making sure she is taken care of.

Michael was horrified by what he had done and it was enough to snap him out of the destructive path he'd been on. He had prided himself on being the opposite of his father, earning the nickname of "The Saint". Finding out that Maddie is pregnant is a great joy to him, even in the midst of his shame. He is determined to convince Maddie to marry him. He doesn't blame her at all for her dislike of him and offers her anything she wants if she will marry him.

All Maddie had been looking for was support so that she could raise the baby. She doesn't even want to be in the same room with him. She's heard his nickname, but doesn't believe it, as that's not the experience she had with him. She comes to realize that marriage will ensure the best for the baby, but she vows to make it as hard on Michael as she can. I thought her extravagances and attempts to get to him were pretty childish, but they sort of backfired on her as he was so calm about everything. Things started to change when they left London for the country.

When the arrived at his childhood home, Maddie began to see a different side of Michael. There he couldn't hide the vulnerability caused by his memories of living there. His parents had hated each other and ignored him and it affected everything he did and became. As she sees him going about his daily life she begins to know and like what she sees, and her attitude softens. She also sees her own actions in a poorer light.

Michael's memories of his home make him realize that he really doesn't want to have the same kind of marriage his parents had. His initial determination that Maddie have everything she wants as a method of redemption begins to change as he wants to do things for her because he wants her to be happy.

Things are really starting to look up for them until her first love shows up and wants to pick up where they left off. But Maddie sees him a lot differently now. She waits for some indication from Michael that he cares enough to fight for her and is hurt when she doesn't see it. Meanwhile, Michael is very jealous but he wants Maddie to have what will make her happy, even if that means giving her up. I loved her final confrontation with Richard, and then seeing her have at Michael with her leftover frustration. The conclusion was very satisfying.

I enjoyed the parts that his half brother and his wife played in this book. Having met them in the first book, I loved seeing how they are doing now. Both Evie and Sam take great delight in making sure that Michael doesn't get off too easy.

[Kimberly Rocha~ Book Obsessed Chicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Madeline Cranston appears at his doorstep carrying Michael Poole, the Duke of St Aldric's child. The man who to the ton is known as The Saint has a secret to hide from all. She wanted to be a governess but when the Duke is accused of forcing himself upon her the only remedy is to make Madeline his Duchess for he has little chance of another heir since an illness has rendered him unable to produce one. Or has it?

Once the future is secured for Madeline and her unborn child, she sets out to make Michael's life as miserable as possible. Michael made a terrible mistake and he is prepared to pay for it every single day of his life if necessary. Try as he might to distance himself from the woman he took to wife is almost impossible when his awakening feelings for the woman he hurt so badly begin to make his life clear. Will it be possible for Michael to melt the ice that has taken over Madeline's heart and make her see that he is no longer that man who hurt her, but the Saint he is known to be to his friends and the like?

THE FALL OF A SAINT by Christine Merrill is the first book I have read by this author and I find that it is well written and a good story. I have taken a peek a some of the reviews that pan the book for the "rape", but I do not agree. Occasionally that type of scene is necessary for the story to portray a state of mind and set the scene. That scene was in no way glamorized and the author didn't give us every little detail that could have made it hard to handle. I actually applaud Christine Merrill for daring to go where some fear to tread. I There were times when I would have liked to have throttled both characters but the resolution made up for those instances. I found THE FALL OF A SAINT an enjoyable read though not for the faint of heart. In the very least, this book will bring up debate and I always think debate is a great thing.

~KIMBERLY~

[Sonya Heaney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Originally posted HERE .

Firstly, is it just me, or does the man on the cover look just like Alexander Skarsgård?

Secondly, this is the second of two connected books, and I really, really loved the first one. This is an author with a lovely, engaging writing style, and I’ve been looking forward to this second instalment for ages. It wasn’t so much that this one disappointed me as it offended me.

Thirdly, you’re only going to enjoy this one if you can get past the fact the book opens on this situation:

The lead female character turns up on the man’s doorstep, pregnant. A couple of months earlier, he got drunk, barged into her room and raped her. Hence the pregnancy. Now she needs help, because she lost her job because of the rape.

Some people might be able to read past this premise. I’m too much of a feminist to forgive it. Yes, attempts are made to explain it away, but rape is rape, and that’s something we’ve been trying to get men to believe for centuries. No excuses.

I wasn’t thrilled that the first thing the woman thought when confronting her rapist was that he was very good-looking. Too much forgiveness for a rapist, right from the outset, for me to deal with! This was a character I loved in the other book, so I left this one feeling quite sad.

The Harlequin Historical line is really ‘out there’ at the moment. Rapists as romantic heroes. Male prostitutes as romantic heroes. Whatever in the world could be next?



Review copy provided by NetGalley.

[Annie Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an issue in this book that may put some people off - the question of "was it a rape". However, the event, and the subsequent emotional journey for both hero and heroine was handled very skilfully. Both had to confront the darker aspects of their past, and make choices about how to come to terms with where they found themselves as a consequence. I didn't always like them, or how either of them behaved, but was rooting for them to find their hea by the end.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I thought it would be a good book but I could not get past the heroine letting the hero crawl into her bed, make love to her, and she thought she was dreaming. I don't think so. When he made amends by making her a duchess, she is still looking for revenge. An pregnant unemployed governess or a duchess...hmm let me think.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't like how it started WONT finish reading it.
How can a romance book start with an instance of Rape?
That's what it was.
Wont finish reading it, wont recommend it.

[Ami Hoe]

I've only made it halfway through chapter 3 and I'm not sure if I'll finish.

The Hero, very drunk stumbles into what he thinks is the room of the inn's barmaid and into her welcoming arms. As he finished up she starts screaming and people come in and pull him out of the room, where he still doesn't seem to realize it's not the right person.

The heroine is dreaming of her old lover, who she thinks is dead. When a man comes into her room she opens her arms and welcomes him in until she wakes up enough to realize it can't be him and is in fact a real man (which maybe she sort of knew all along)

Now she is understandably quite upset and angry at what happened to her which is, in no way okay, regardless of what she was dreaming about. And she is understandably upset about the consequences of what happened to her when her prospected employer witnesses the even and she looses employment and reputation. She's understandably prepared to fight when she goes to seek out the Duke to demand some sort of reparation once she finds out she is pregnant.

When he does nothing to deny the claims and admits total responsibility and sincere regret about his behaviour and actions and shows every intention of doing everything he can to make things right, she doubles down on hating him and wanting to make him pay forever for ruining her life.

I have trouble with this. Not to excuse his behaviour as he made terrible choices which led to an innocent women being harmed, however, especially for the expectations of the time period, he's making her a duchess and promising her every material thing she could want and to show her every respect that is her due and legitimacy to her child. Way more benefit than she could ever have imagined getting when she went to him and yet it's like the more he offers the more she hates him and wants him to suffer. In fact she basically agrees to marry him so she can make him pay ad infinitum.

I feel like the heroine is trying to punish the hero less for what actually happened and is more lashing out at him because she resents the fact that she, in her steamy dreams of her lover reached out to him and liked it -- at least until she realized it wasn't her lover. She has soiled the memory of her perfect love. And that she resents the fact that her self-imposed martyrdom of living a solitary and childless life in memory of a lover she knew for a week years ago is now spoiled by the fact that she will have a child and a husband.

There is no statute of limitations on when a victim has to forgive her assailant. Also I guess a victim doesn't have to attempt to understand the difference between a brutal premeditated rape and a stupid drunken blunder that ends in sincere remorse. Both are non-consensual for the victim, but I feel like to paint the perpetrator with the same amount of evil in both cases is unfair.

Her reactions feel extremely exaggerated compared to the actual harm she suffered and the amount of reparation he has given her. Yes you can ask how do we know what a person has suffered but in this case it shows inside her head. and she don's think about being physically injured. She wasn't actually a virgin (though she lets the duke believe she was), which in that time has a special extra important injury to her future, she doesn't seem particularly traumatized by the event (though again she pretends that she is afraid of him just to make him feel worse). It does not make her a sympathetic character. People like this are why it's easy to brush aside claims of rape and boil women down to heartless gold diggers.

[Natalija · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going into this book, I knew it had a lower rating than book 1, but I didn't expect to dislike it for something other than the hero.

To start with, I knew I wanted to read Michael's story after seeing how he was presented in the first installment. Sam, his half-brother, described him as being "infinitely tedious in his virtue", which is definitely the opposite of the flawed characters I prefer, and with a title like "The Fall of a Saint", I needed to know more. I do not condone his behavior between the two stories, but I certainly didn't think that what he did was intentional.

For me, the main problem with this story was Maddie. I knew I wouldn't like her straight from the first chapter when she was talking to Evelyn aka Boadicea in this quote:

"Maddie smiled and settled back into the luxurious velvet cushions of the divan, sipping her tea. Perhaps Boadicea had arrived too late to fight for her honour. But she appeared more than able to gain reparation for the loss of it. Maddie need do nothing but wait."

She doesn't appear particularly traumatised or upset. That description makes her seem rather calculated and villainous.

I certainly didn't warm up towards her after she agreed to marry St. Aldric. There was no need to make their lives miserable. She herself describes her the best:

"Was it just the circumstances of their meeting that had caused this vicious streak in her nature? Or had she been like this before, sour and disagreeable?"

Bottom line, I didn't see any love between these characters. Maddie hated St. Aldric for what he did, but was so horny that she jumped him almost immediately after the wedding. I didn't find their sexual escapades romantic, and I don't believe in a HEA for this couple.

[DKC · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story had an interesting premise, but I felt like I missed something by not reading the "Sinner and Saint" story beforehand.

I found myself torn between feeling bad for Michael - he really did do a stupid thing, and he fully accepted it as reprehensible and wanted to make amends - and being ticked off at Maddie. Granted, I felt appropriate fury and indignation at the beginning, but then as I learned about her past, I got a bit ticked off at how she just wanted to slap a label on Michael and ignore his humanity for far too long. Also, the author did such a good job of making Michael a sympathetic, feeling character, it added to my irritation with Maddie. He never treated his wife as though she were a tawdry, grasping opportunist, yet that's often how she chose to behave. Talk about emotional baggage!

Michael was a bit less alpha than I like 'em, but it was essential to the plot and character, in order for the reader to want these two to actually care for each other. I enjoyed seeing Maddie realize that he was just as trapped in his "privileged" upbringing as she was as an orphan. It was nice to finally see them come together simply as people, not caricatures.

The denouement was hilarious, I must say, and certainly entertained. Good little read!

[Delfina Posse · Rating 3 out of 5]

De la mitad en adelante me pareció una historia muy buena. el principio un poco denso, bastante pesada ella con el tema de gastarle la plata o de recordarle permanentemente lo que pasó. A ver... en definitiva lo entiendo, porque más allá de un héroe romántico divino había efectivamente cometido un error horrible que le cuesta mucho a ella. Pero igual densa con esa actitud. Cuando superaron esa fase me encantó la historia, me gustó cómo se trató la parte de Richard y de que lo desestimen bastante rápido como "gran amor". Lo desmitifica y ayuda a darle más credibilidad al amor de los duques.
Una buena historia la verdad.

[Pamela Fernandes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Micheal and Madeleine are on opposite ends of a spectrum. She's a governess and he's the Duke. For all hi saintly behavior, he's made on mistake and gotten the governess pregnant. He marries her, to do right by her. But she has a past, a lover. The story works because they're both in a relationship that is forced. I liked that he's not a brute, pushy hero like many historical romances are and that he leaves many decisions to Madeleine something unheard of in this period of history. Loved the home and setting. Nice noon read.

[Lolo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a very hard time trying to ignore this type of writing style, but I just couldn't. Everything was going so fast, written in a horrible way and the story became something else for me. Something useless, lifeless and worthless. Thanks for wasting my time!

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite scenes is the one at Tattersall's :) 4 stars! Quite unforgettable!

[Verity Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

This starts so VERY badly. Non-consensual sex is a really distasteful way to begin a romance novel. I’m not sure I’ll finish it either, because I’m not warming to the protagonists at all.

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

the most boring piece of literature i've ever read
i got so bored the first page
so i dnfd

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christine Merrill is a new author to me but I did enjoy this book. It does begin different than your normal romance but it is very well written and eventually the author lies out and explains everything. I think anyone who doesn’t read beyond the beginning will definitely miss out on a good book. This is the second book in The Sinners and the Saint series but can be read as a stand-alone book. There is enough past history explained within the book to keep the reader from feeling as if they are missing something if they haven’t read number one, The Greatest of Sins, in the series.

I can’t stress enough to not give up reading as it does begin differently than what is normally expected in a romance. Everything is not as it seems. The author pulls everything together before the end of the book and an author who can pull this off, and Christine Merrill does, is very talented.

Brothers separated at birth, brought together by scandal

The hero is the Duke of St. Aldric, and the heroine Madeline Cranston, is a governess. Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, is everything society expects and desires in a duke. Determined to live a different kind of an adult life than his parents, Michael became a gentleman everyone adored and respected and became known as “The Saint” with a perfect life and a perfect fiancée. Then with an illness, mumps, he loses his fiancée and much of his perfect life. Thinking everything is now ruined, especially as he is told as a result of the mumps he will never father children, he then turns to drink.

Making a mistake at an inn he enters Madeline’s room. She thinks she is dreaming. Madeline loses her position as governess along with her reputation which makes acquiring another position impossible. She then shows up two months later on the Duke’s doorstep telling him she is with child. Being upset with him is putting it mildly and Madeline wants to make him pay. She wants compensation.

Michael, being too drunk to really remember everything, doesn’t blame her and instead of compensation, offers a marriage of convenience. The chance of becoming a father is something he thought was impossible and he wanted to grab at the chance and give his child legitimacy and childhood he never had. But making that an actuality becomes very hard and with Madeline’s grudge against him he finds his life becoming exactly like his parents, a parents who lived life to make each other miserable.

Madeline, who did not know the Duke prior to that one night and after a while begins to see the real Michael, finds it hard to continue her plan of making him pay in any way she possibly can. He handles all the problems she creates in unexpected ways.

Can this couple, with very different backgrounds, ever find happiness with one trying to make life as difficult as possible and the other bending over backwards to make things work to give his family a better life? Will things really be different from the life he watched his parents live?

This great author pulls everything together into an entertaining read which tells the story of two people falling into unexpected circumstances and overcoming obstacles to make a happy life together. This book includes and touches on every emotion a person will ever feel. I highly recommend this and other books written by Christine Merrill.

THE ONLY WOMAN WHO CAN MAKE HIM REPENT!

Honorable—and handsome to boot!—Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, has earned his nickname "The Saint." But the ton would shudder if they knew the truth. Because, thrust into a world of debauchery, this saint has turned sinner!

With the appearance of fallen governess Madeline Cranston—carrying his heir—St. Aldric looks for redemption through a marriage of convenience. But the intriguing Madeline is far from a dutiful duchess, and soon this saint is indulging in the most sinful of thoughts…while his new wife vows to make him pay for his past.

The Sinner and the Saint
Brothers separated at birth, brought together by scandal

[Shannon L. Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fall of a Saint by Christine Merrill


Was it Rape or Mistaken Identity?


Author Christine Merrill is not shy of her portrayal of a controversial beginning for a romance. Not many victims of rape can say they would forgive their perpetrator, let alone fall in love with him. Yet, in this story the lines of rape and consent visibly blur into was it a vivid dream when Madeline Cranston held out her arms welcoming the man into her bed until she woke enough to know it was not the man she yearned for. Michael Poole, a Duke, was so intoxicated he mistook the welcoming woman for the bar maid that had invited him originally. It wasn’t until the act was over for him that he realized she was not the correct woman and she was not welcoming at that time.

It was her screaming that announced the wrong, when realization hit because she believed the man who had come into her darkened room to be the man she loved come back from the dead- the man she was told died in war. To make matters worse, her prospective employer was to meet her at the inn the next day, only to arrive at that inopportune moment when the scandal hit the hallway. Her days as a professional tutor/nanny were over. She flees the inn in shame only to search out the Duke months later when she finds she is pregnant.

He being noble, despite that night of shame, proposes to her immediately. He needs an heir and pins his hopes on this unborn child. Trying to do the right thing is obvious and in this time period when kissing a woman would ruin her reputation, he has no other choice. His own half-brother was not acknowledged by his father. He would not repeat the same mistake. Yet history seems it would repeat when after the wedding, Madeline still holds resentment. The Duke’s marriage is like his parents, which is his worse nightmare. Some folly follows as she dreams up ways to punish him, only for her to learn he has seen it all before. He watched his parents play the game of punishing each other and emotionally neglecting him. As in all romances, their relationship ebbs and flows with much change and maturing between them. All though they are an unlikely match, in the end they become perfect for each other.

Despite the initial controversial rape scene (not in explicit detail) that many find offensive, the story is quite entertaining. The writing flows giving the story full potential and the characters surprise even given the circumstances. Overall it was enjoyable to read once one gets over the incident that brought these two characters together. By her own admission, Madeline hides the fact she did hold out her arms to the man in her bed that night. She may have dreamed of her love coming to her, making love to her but that dream was shattered when she realized it was not him at all. Thus it blurs the line and is not true non-consensual rape but perchance mistaken identity on both of their parts.

To read other books by Christine Merrill visit her website at:
http://christine-merrill.com/books/



I was given an ARC of this title by NetGalley.
http://literarilyillumined.wordpress....

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review also appears on Reading with Analysis.

I cannot believe I liked this book, you guys. In fact, I think there might be something wrong with me. You see, it goes against one of my hardest of hard limits: it gives an HEA to a hero who raped the heroine. I know. I KNOW! But here’s the thing… it was interesting because it stayed resolutely mired in the gray area that is real life; it was believable because it allowed the hero and heroine each to feel a whole range of emotions, regrets, hopes, and fears; and it was subversive as hell because it took a number of tropes — the rapey hero, the victimized heroine, the marriage of convenience, the secret baby… — twisted them around, and hinted at a dialogue I just never expected to find in a Harlequin Historical.

There are some things about rape that you just know, right? (And if you don’t… well, I don’t want to hear about it.) For example, in a scenario wherein an intoxicated man stumbles upon a sleeping woman and proceeds to have sex with her, is it rape? You probably answered, YES. And you’re right, because the sleeping woman did not give consent. Here’s a harder question, though: take that same intoxicated man and tell me if he’s an evil person, a person who deserves to be punished forever for what he did. Tell me what that punishment looks like. These questions do not have simple answers. To get near the neighborhood of those answers, you have to answer a whole slew of other questions: what is good, and what is evil? what is right, and what is wrong? what is justice? what do we mean when we say “deserve,” and who could decide such a thing?

I am certain — indeed, there is proof in these Goodreads reviews — that not everyone will agree with me that the HEA in The Fall of a Saint is just. I liked it because it pushed the envelope and made me think beyond the failed logic of my oversimplified views vis-à-vis rape and rapists (namely that rape is evil, ergo rapists are evil; that happily ever after is good; that good and evil are incompatible, ergo happily ever after and rapists are incompatible. While that logic works in many circumstances, it is not flawless because (1) the jump from rape being evil to rapists being evil is not supported in that argument and because (2) it oversimplifies complicated issues into the deceptively simple categories "good" and "evil.")

The truth is, it’s just not that simple, and I liked The Fall of a Saint because it didn’t try to keep things simple. Merrill allowed her hero to feel devastation and condemnation and hopelessness and self-hatred; she allowed him to act with contrition; but she also allowed him to develop hope and to find happiness. If it were just about him, maybe that would be problematic, but she also allowed her heroine to feel anger and grief and shame and righteousness; she allowed her to act out her anger; but she also allowed her to develop strength and forgiveness. And together they found love, and I thought that was pretty cool, all things considered.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://http://ramblingsfromthischick....
“The Fall of the Saint” as my first read by Christine Merrill. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was intrigued by the plot. The good guy taken down by a governess.

Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, is known as “the Saint.” Since this is the second book of the “Sinner and the saint” series the book picks up where, I assume, the first book left off. Michael shared a night with Madeline Cranston and she is pregnant. Michael was sick and thought he was sterile. Because having an heir is so important to him he goes on a rampage and begins to sleep around with different woman. He mistakenly goes into Madeline’s room and they share a moment together.

Madeline is in love with Richard. He goes off to war and she believes him dead. Although she thinks he is dead she still has hope that he will return for her. While she is staying at an inn she has an interview for a governess position, that is when she meets Michael.

Michael was too drunk to realize what happened but once he finds out that Madeline is pregnant he wants to marry her. His half- brother, Dr. Samuel Hastings was an illegitimate son and he doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. Even though he doesn’t know Madeline he wants to honor what he has done. Madeline doesn’t have too many options so she accepts his proposal.

Honestly, I disliked both these characters and the plot. Michael is anything but saintly. In the previous book he loses his fiancée Evelyn to his illegitimate brother and gets the mumps. It all becomes too much for him so he starts a life of debauchery. Madeline was really a jerk also. I disliked her immensely. First, she is so manipulative. She leads Michael to believe that something occurred the night that they were together that did not actually occur. She then acts disgusted with Michael. She tries to belittle every gesture he makes in order to develop some type of relationship with her. She makes it seem like she is frightened of him until one night she can’t control herself and seeks him out. THEN Michael begins to develop feelings for Madeline when Richard comes back. In his genius he invites Richard to stay at his house AND puts him in the room next to his wife because he knows that she is in love with him. My goodness… I seriously wanted to strangle these two because they were so ridiculous. So why three stars? Because I was intrigued with these two characters and I wanted to see how their story would play out despite how infuriating they were. This was definitely a unique story.

[Rara Loves to Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I absolutely adore historical romances. In fact, it was historical romances that started my love of romance novels. After reading thousands of historicals, I thought that I had read just about every possible premise for romance. I was never so happy to be wrong. The Fall of a Saint by Christine Merrill offered an original reason for bringing the hero and heroine together and I was hooked from the very first page.

Many may find the beginning of The Fall of a Saint to be controversial, but I found it to be realistic and intriguing. Michael Poole, Duke of St. Aldric, made a horrible mistake the night he went into Madeline Cranston’s room. He was completely drunk and believed she was the servant that he had arranged an assignment with. Madeline was dreaming about her lost love and that his ghost had entered her room. So she welcomed him with open arms. Once each realized the error, it was too late. And now their night has resulted in a pregnancy.

I was fascinated by the quandary of whether it was rape or consensual sex. The answer for both the heroine and hero was just as muddled as it was for the reader. Madeline was understandably angry and Michael felt great guilt. His guilt and happiness about the baby propels him to propose marriage. She is determined to make his life miserable and agrees to marry him as a means to exact revenge. But life isn’t just black and white. It’s filled with many different shades of grey as Madeline learned.

It was this conundrum that kept me turning the pages until I had reached the satisfying end. Watching Madeline come to terms with what happened and slowly changing her mind about Michael kept me engrossed. Michael was an interesting character and as his childhood was slowly revealed, we too changed our minds about him. The change in their relationship evolved slowly and in such a way that it made complete sense.

In fact, everything about the entire book made complete sense. The dialogue was natural and believable, the storyline flowed, even the secondary characters were just as well developed as the leads. This was my first book by Christine Merrill, but it certainly won’t be my last. With The Fall of a Saint, she has turned me into a fan.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review Posted on Harlequin Junkies.com

The Fall of a Saint by Christine Merrill: It’s a interesting story, full of initially unlikeable people. Maddie Cranston is an angry woman, a former governess who is now without a position having found herself accidental pregnant by Michael Poole, the Duke of St Aldric, also known as “The Saint.” She hates both herself for welcoming him into her bed while dreaming and imagining him to be her first love, and him for being there, and being the cause of her losing her livelihood. She is also afraid, not knowing what will happen to herself or her unborn child, but imagining that a duke would not want his child be raised in poverty. Michael, on the other hand, is full of conflicting emotions: self-loathing for having gotten drunk and climbing into the bed of the wrong woman and taking complete advantage of her, and elation at having gotten her pregnant after being told he was most likely infertile due to a bad case of mumps. His solution to the problem is asking her to marry him, and telling Maddie that she can have or do anything that she wants. Maddie accepts, because there really is no alternative for her, and because she would have an unlimited opportunity for revenge against him.Read More

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I've never read one of Christine Merrill's books and I found her style to be easy to read and fairly enjoyable. But, I was disturbed by the beginning of the book and the fact that the hero may (or may not) have raped the heroine. It definitely appeared that way at first though it seemed like Merrill tried to insure that it didn't happen like that by the end. I was not the biggest fan of Maddie's character and her desire to cause as much havoc as she could in Aldric's life. Aldric was hard for me to figure out since I hated his initial treatment of Maddie in the inn, but his past and overall personality was appealing to me. I'm still confused about what I feel about this book so I'm just going to end it here.

Thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Maggie Hesseling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. In a drunken stupor, the leading man accidently has sex with a woman who thinks he's someone else and then is forced to marry him. Then, for the majority of the novel they can't stand each other. Eventually they do fall in love though, especially after her lost love returns and turns out to be an ass.

The characters not only act weirdly in certain situations, but also seem to be almost detached from some of the events that occur. How long should she hold it over her head that he raped her? And is it rape, as she went along with it although she wasn't aware of whom it was? These questions (and more) are what you are left with after finishing.