Search - Born in Sin: A MacAllisters Novel

It's not perfect but within the realms of light, easy historical romance, it is close. The portrayal of a tortured, abused and unloved hero has seldom been written better. Sin, the bastard son of an unloving father and hateful mother had such a horrendous childhood that no one even considered the possibility of redemption. Callie does not know this, however, and having never heard of the infamous Sin, chooses to look past his reputation to find the man underneath. This story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. One thing is for sure, it is undoubtedly and completely sigh worthy

Catching read!!

I really enjoyed the story and the couple Sin and Caledonia. I saw them mentioned several times in the "Favorite Romance Couples" forum topic and was very pleased with the book.

What a fun book! This was my third book in this series I have read and I plan to read them all. It's light hearted, probably historically inaccurate. Sin was very much like one of the Dark-Hunters MacGregor / Kenynon created.

I loved both characters and it was great to see all the brothers interact together. My only complaint was that the women in this series seemed to be a little too perfect, but I love how sassy and crazy they are.

Great read.

MacGregor's style of writing historical romance is to write as if everything is happening today. The dialogue, save a few "ayes" and "miladys", is contemporary, as well as all notions of age, the language of emotion (how it is discussed or thought about), and general social behavior. While today a sixteen or eighteen year old young man would be considered a child, certainly in the 12th century a male of 16 was considered a man. He would fight in wars, even be married at that age (as were most girls). I sincerely doubt women and men discussed their Feelings to such great degree. I can suspend disbelief for a good romance, but the constant use of very contemporary language and social ideas is distracting from the story. Several scenes felt so out of place and time it was nearly cringe-worthy.
The hero of this book was remarkable in that he was both a virgin and a man who had suffered such terrible mistreatment and torture as a child, with more abuse revealed on almost every page, it is difficult to imagine him being capable of almost any normal human behavior at all. There is a kind of allure to heroes written that way but MacGregor's rather silly approach to his healing romance was off-putting. Sin was a very compelling character but was easily persuaded into silliness that made no sense to the character.
I've read a contemporary romance by Sherrilyn Kenyon (MacGregor's alter ego) and had similar complaints - characters too chipper, dialogue not fitting the people and their station, general silliness that seemed out of place.
Probably my last by this author.

Writing as Kinley MacGregor, Sherrilyn Kenyon is not as potent as her later works under the more popular pen name. This book was decent, but I didn't like the relationship (or lack of one?) between Sin and his brothers. I would have liked to see more tension there, but the way she wrote it still works. If you like historical romances, this one is worth reading.