There's one thing you can say for Eloisa James. Her heroines are very sex-positive. A Wild Pursuit is another novel in the Duchess Quartet full of extremely horny people being extremely horny for one another. Not only that, they are very shameless about their desires. This is of course not a bad thing! I appreciate heroines who know what they want and who go after it. If you get nothing out of this book, at least know that there will be a lot of lusty scenes.

The chemistry between the characters is very clear and very strong, but the characterizations of them individually is on the weaker side, in my opinion. Beatrix Lennox has fallen into scandal on accident, and after being treated horribly by society, she decides to embrace the identity she's been given. This would seem like a show, except that Beatrix has actually taken lovers! She knows what she's about, and it's fun to read about someone so genuine. The only thing that was odd about her is that, as soon as she meets Helene, they begin discussing Helene's very private marriage, which would never ever happen in the Regency era. The conversation was so risqué (no one would even talk about it among strangers today) that it completely broke the immersion for me.

Unfortunately, everyone else in the book was faker than a set of boobs in Orange County, CA. Stephen Fairfax-Lacy constantly moralizes about how women are so much prettier without makeup and that Beatrix shouldn't put on airs. Because apparently being confident in one's sexuality isn't sexy to men and so must be an act. He's only satisfied after he does some mental gymnastics that makes her out to be a virgin of pleasure because he must be the only man to really satisfy her. Blegh!

Then, there's Esme who flirts with every man in sight, even when her best friends call dibs. She's the type of person no woman wants to be friends with because she will flirt with your partner no matter what and then will act astonished when you get mad at her. She's supposed to grow in this novel by realizing that "respectability" isn't all it's cracked up to be and to follow her heart. Except she experiences no consequences, so she still gets her reputation restored to her, even when she marries ol' Judge Frollo.

Aside from Beatrix and Helene, who had a bigger part in this novel, this story was a bore and another tale where women "must" want families and children, "must" look a certain way to be desirable (which is either innocent sexy or oozing sex without even trying), and they "must belong" to only one man to be truly fulfilled in life. I don't recommend this book to anyone unless you're a completionist like myself. ( )

Se rumorea a espaldas de los seguidores de las viudas ricas londinenses y en los rincones de los salones más elegantes, que el escándalo persigue deliberadamente a la salvaje lady Beatriz Lennox allí adonde va. Tres años atrás, la debutante había causado sensación tras ser encontrada en una posición inconfundiblemente comprometida. Ahora, todo el mundo la ha etiquetado de «incasable», su familia la ha catalogado como una «cualquiera», y Beatriz no tiene ningún motivo ya para ir detrás de lo que desea. Y ella quiere a Stephen Fairfax-Lacy, el atractivo conde de Spade. Pero ella no podría ser más diferente de la mujer ideal del conde.

2.5 stars rounded up. It was actually driving me batty, but I finally decided that I should just consider it a comedy of errors with a cast of nitwits, and then it was actually much easier to swallow. If there is an awful option on the table, they will choose it! Absolutely preposterous stuff. Beyond the horrible decision making and daftness of the characters it was fine though. ( )

Nice read, but again I was equally, if not more, interested in Esme and Sebastian. ( )

I really enjoy Eloisa James' books, and didn't mind this one, but I did find it a bit slow at times. I like the characters and enjoyed reading the next installment in the lives of these duchesses, but did find that I skipped a few pages here and there to get to "the good parts". ( )