Review: Wicked

Title: Wicked
Author: Shannon Drake a.k.a. Heather Graham
Publisher/Series: Harlequin
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

Wicked was entertaining, but not nearly as angsty as I would have preferred. The intelligent, analytic hero and heroine, so like the characters in Amanda Quick novels, give the book a lightheartedness it might not have otherwise had, since the subject matter is pretty dark. The novel centers on a man whose parents had been murdered and who, when hearing of their deaths, went berserk on the battlefield and apparently disfigured himself so much that he's worn a mask ever since. It was the mask that sold me on the book in the first place. Something about a man in a mask...mmm. After all, all romance heroes are wearing masks, aren't they? There are a lot of Beauty and the Beast moments in this novel, which I enjoyed, and the Ancient Egypt angle is always fun. If it had only been a bit more dark, a bit more tortured, this could definitely have become one of my favourites.