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Romance Critics love Almost a Gentleman. Here's what they're saying: “a must-read for devotees of erotic romance . . . tightly written, intelligent, and romantic ... Sensuality is voluptuous, contextual and thoroughly joyful.”
"an
author who bears watching."
"a steamy, sizzling romance with a thrilling
story"
"...
cannot wait to see what Pam Rosenthal will offer next."
Experience Almost a Gentleman's "hot erotic sex" and "flowing prose."
Almost a Gentleman
is "thrilling" and "definitely not your typical Regency."
"Where are the really sexy, well-written
novels for grown-up, sophisticated readers? At long last, I found one
in Pam Rosenthal's Almost a Gentleman."
Almost a Gentleman is a "captivating story"
: "With graceful writing and a poetic touch, debut romance author
Rosenthal... skillfully integrates vividly detailed, sizzlingly sensual
love scenes into a captivating story that shifts between deception,
danger, and desire with spectacular results."
"...a wonderfully complex novel ...a book
to linger over."
"...the sensual scenes are lush, hot, and
non-apologetic fun. This was a sophisticated novel and a pleasure to
read."
Almost a Gentleman is "...a spectacular debut":
"This witty romp through Regency London brings the reader snappy
dialogue, unforgettable characters and an impatience to read her next
book."
Almost a Gentleman is "...wonderfully infectious"
: "Un put-downable. An absolute joy to read and comment upon."
Almost a Gentleman is a "Desert Isle Keeper"
and an A-rated book: "... one of the most sensual reading experiences
I've ever had ... the book for all those readers who've been wanting
to dip their toe into the more erotic end of the genre spectrum."
"[The hero] is...wow. He's gallant, he's
chauvinistic, he's selfish, and he's selfless real and larger than life
all at once."
"Pam Rosenthal makes a lovely debut with
a titillating erotic romance that captures the dignified Regency era
from clothing to mores, entertainment to sexuality. She taps into the
stuff of female fantasies: an empowered heroine able to bring men to
their knees and a handsome, sexy, strong yet sensitive hero. Rosenthal
has a glittering future in the genre."
Almost a Gentleman is a Rhapsody Book Club selection. (posted 5.6.03)
David Hervey, Earl of Linseley, has recently discovered that the very elegant Mr. Phizz Marston is a woman in disguise – a woman David finds himself increasingly attracted to. In this scene, he welcomes the chance to help “Marston” (who’s still in male dress) deal with some threatening letters.
She looks different today, he thought. She’s pale and seems as exhausted as I am. He yearned to kiss the dark, delicate skin below her eyes even as he sought to understand the change her looks had undergone. Her motions were controlled, less flamboyant than those of the day before, but still proud and angular. She looks fearless, he thought, resolute. A thrill passed through him. She’s come to a decision. And her resolve to take the consequences had clearly eradicated all of yesterday’s fears. She led him into a small, book-lined study. There was a sandalwood box and a pile of papers on a graceful oval table at the room’s center. She motioned him to one of the chairs alongside the table and then slid into the other. He picked up the first letter and began to read, trying not to be distracted by her proximity, her clean sharp smell of cucumber soap and freshly ironed linen. He became more grateful for those smells as he read on. For reading the letters she’d received was like wallowing through mud and offal. “Filth,” he concluded half an hour later. Unconsciously, he’d balled up his fists, outraged by the fury Marston seemed to provoke. “It’s all nasty, horrible stuff,” he said, “but on second thought it seems to me that there’s a quite different quality about these last three.” He spread the sheets of paper, their messages assembled of cut newspaper, on the polished walnut table. “So you feel it as well,” she said. “The . . . malevolence of them?” The second letter proclaimed that: YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME BACK FROM D.
And the third spat out a series of furious appellations, like curses marching crazily down the page: HARPY HARRIDAN CIRCE SHREW “This one just arrived just a few hours ago,” she said in a toneless voice. “All names for a monstrous, unnatural woman,” she added, “but of course you see that.” He murmured assent. “And does the D, in fact, stand for Devonshire?” he asked. She nodded. “You’re not the only person who knows where my journeys end, you see.” “It was only a lucky guess on my part.” She sighed. “It’s odd, though, isn’t it, that after three years of success I should be unmasked by two parties all at once. You . . .” “Because I care for you.” “Yes well, you want me, in any case. Perhaps it’s just as well that you don’t know me well enough to care for me. And it should be clear by now that I want you as well. But we’ll deal with all that in due time.” He stared at her, not quite sure what to make of the directness with which she’d addressed him. He corrected himself: his mind wasn’t sure; his body seemed to have no problems whatsoever with her mode of address. “But this letter-writer,” she continued, “if writer he can be called . . . this other person hates me. I can feel it. Absolute, implacable hatred, instead of the simple pique and humiliation in the other letters, which is, on the whole, more amusing than troublesome.”
She shrugged. “Beaten them at gambling. Gotten them blackballed from White’s. In one way or another, I’ve made it clear just how cheap, petty, and ridiculous these posturing fools really are. It’s not difficult and it’s all quite trivial. Not at all like challenging them in Parliament as you do.” He shook his head. “It may be more trivial, but to me it seems a great deal more dangerous. Because it’s still a man’s game you’re playing. And even if they don’t suspect . . .” His voice trailed off. Without being told, he’d grasped the unspoken decorum of her home: one might say quite erotic and provocative things to her, but one didn’t ever refer to the facts of her disguise, at least in the rooms downstairs. And he wouldn’t let himself think about the rooms upstairs where she dressed. Where she undressed. Where she bathed . . . “You were saying, my lord?” “Oh. Yes. Right. I was saying that these adversaries of yours, petty and ridiculous as they are, do sense something rather out of the ordinary. Perhaps it’s simply the perfection of your masculine masquerade. You’re more perfect than any real man, even the most mannered of dandies, and they sense it; they’re put off balance by it even as they’re humiliated by how absolutely you’ve captured their attention. They rather enjoy their humiliation, you see, and they write these letters to exaggerate the sense of titillation they feel. After all, Mr. Marston, you’re a very attractive young man.” She essayed not to smile. “You have something . . . ah, unusual about you. A quality. A little something extra.” “Actually, it’s rather something less.” “It’s not something less. At least that’s not how I’ve ever thought about it.” “Then you’re a most unusual man as well.” “Someday I hope to demonstrate that to you, Mr. Marston, at close range. But to return to the matter at hand . . .” They must compile a list, he told her, of the gentlemen most likely to respond to Marston’s having exposed their weaknesses and inadequacies to society. This, however, turned out to be a more difficult task than he’d expected, for she seemed to have made social mincemeat of most of polite London at one time or another. Why, he wondered. Why this unceasing need to strike out at snobbery, hypocrisy, and complacency? Still, he had to admire the brio with which she’d gone about it. The energy and the sly wit. “Drumblestone’s Bargain Blacking? I shall have to ask my valet if he’s ever heard of it.” “He doesn’t use it, my lord. At least not on your boots, I can assure you of that.” She swung around in her chair, to afford herself a better view of his body seated at her table. She swept her eyes down over his boots and up over his legs in imitation of his glance at her yesterday. He allowed himself a rueful shiver of appreciation: women didn’t use their eyes that way. Even prostitutes were less direct, less at ease with the art of erotic scrutiny. “You’re a formidable adversary, Mr. Marston,” he observed. “I must remember never to expose my own petty weaknesses and economies to you.” Whatever else, he thought, moving his chair a few inches further away from her, I might desire to expose. Her mouth had settled into the maddening curve that might or might not be a smile. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well then. I think we can narrow the list down to three besides Bunbury.” She nodded. “Raikes and Smythe-Cochrane, certainly.” “And our mutual favorite, Lord Crashaw. Whose character is as black as his boots are not.” He frowned. “But that brings up a serious problem. For my plan was to speak to these gentlemen directly, to see what ill will they harbor you. And whereas I can certainly approach Raikes and Smythe-Cochrane, Crashaw absolutely won’t receive me. Won’t even acknowledge me in a public venue.” He told her, with some pride, about the lands he’d bought up at auction, snatching them from Crashaw’s greedy grasp. She listened so eagerly that he told her more than he’d intended, confiding that he was actually a bit strapped for cash these days. Not so much that he’d have to skimp on boot-blacking, but he might in fact have to practice some economies while he was in London. Still it had been worth it, to know that there would be fewer expulsions from the land in his part of the world. “Your part of the world?” “I suppose that’s a stupid way to express it, but it’s how I think of it.” “Very lordly of you.” “I rarely see it that way. Mostly I think of myself as a steward of the land. I’ll be all right if the next harvest is as good as this last -- but spending this winter in London is deuced expensive.” “Then why are you here?” “You know why I’m here.” She looked down at his large hands spread out upon her table. “I’m quite extraordinarily grateful.” “Yes, well . . .” She reached out to begin refolding the letters. He covered her hand with one of his own. A jolt of electricity shot from his fingertips to his body’s center. “Wait,” she whispered, “for just for a moment.” He lifted his hand from hers and stared as she opened the room’s double doors. He could hear her talking to a servant in the foyer. She reentered the room, closing and locking the doors behind her. “I told Mr. Simms that we were not to be disturbed for the next half hour.” “And after that?” She smiled. “After that I told him that we had best be disturbed.” The doors were adorned in the French style of the preceding century, with gaily colored scrolls of fruit and flowers. They looked lighthearted, lascivious. Like the golden sparks that danced in her eyes. “I know we still have a great deal to discuss,” she said while she loosened the knot of her cravat. “But I think that we’ll be able to think more clearly after a short intermission.” Either that, he thought, or we’ll be too besotted to be able to think at all. Swiftly, she unwound the long strip of linen from around her throat. The cloth slithered down her shirtfront to lie in a heap upon the Persian carpet at her feet. She kicked it to the side, leaned against the door, and settled back for the instant it took him to reach her. For a moment he merely savored his body’s closeness to hers. Only an inch away -- he could see the pulse beating in her neck. Warmth spread outward from his center: his groin tightened, his thighs ached to press her hips between them. But he kept his legs together, his arms quietly at his sides. Gently he dipped his head toward her, tracing the curves and hollows of her flesh with his lips and tongue. He took tiny kisses, nuzzling her throat, licking the long lines of her neck, breathing her smell until it began to make him giddy. He loosened the top button of her shirt, grasped her shoulders, and buried his mouth in the hollow just above her clavicle. Moaning at the press of his teeth, she relaxed into his hands’ grip. He tilted her head back still further. She shivered against the roughness of his palm at the nape of her neck, the pull of his callused fingers tousling her hair. His other hand supported the back of her waist. She staggered slightly, perhaps simply for the pleasure of feeling him tighten his hold upon her. She trembled under his mouth as he moved it upward over her neck, chin, and jaw. Steadily, deliberately, he claimed her for himself in tiny, irrevocable movements of lips and tongue, before finally forcing her lips open for a breathless kiss.
“I hadn’t intended to kiss you, my lord.” “I know, Mr. Marston. But then you didn’t kiss me -- not as I imagine you’re capable of kissing me. I kissed you.” “I hadn’t intended to allow you to.” “You knew I’d take more than you allowed me.” She lowered her eyes, wondering if she had known that. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “But then why not take even more? Why not take . . . everything?” “That would be a crude pleasure. I prefer a subtler one: anticipating what you’ll give me next time you’re in a . . . giving mood.” “You’re patient, then.” “I’m not a young man any more. There’s that advantage.” “You’re hardly old, Lord Linseley.” She swept her eyes down over his body again. “I’m certainly not old enough to be proof against lecherous glances like that one. I know you’re a gambler, but don’t overestimate your luck, Mr. Marston.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “There are, after all, another fifteen minutes before we are -- disturbed.” “Thank you. I think I shall need the time. To compose myself. And to re-knot my cravat.” “If I knot it for you, we’ll have time for another kiss. A proper one this time.” “No. Not this time. For I shall also have to rearrange my hair. You’ve mussed it terribly. It’s all sticking up in the back and has exposed my ears to view.” Gently, he traced the curve of her right ear with his thumb. Her neck arched, and her mouth opened slightly to let out a soft, bubbling sigh. “I’ve mussed your hair wonderfully,” he said. “You look like a mischievous little boy who’s stolen a pie from the kitchen and knows he’s in for a caning.” “It was a most delicious . . . pie.” She licked her lips and grinned while he wound the cravat back around her neck. “I feel that I’m hiding a treasure away from the common view,” he sighed. “It’s sad, but also lovely in its way, because only I know where to find it.” “I shall study the knot after you leave,” she whispered. He stood back to watch her comb her hair back into its accustomed waves and spit curls. “Yes, thank you, Simms,” she called when the discreet knock came at the door a few minutes later. She opened the door to let in some air. And perhaps, David thought, to signal that Mr. Marston hadn’t been murdered by his still slightly wild-eyed visitor. She closed it again. “Now where were we?” she asked.
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“You’re brave to find them amusing rather than vicious and insulting. What have you been doing to create such general consternation?” 
pamrosenthal.com
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