Title: The Devil to Pay Author: K.C. Bateman
Published: August 28, 2018
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 340
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Italy, 1492.
Cara di Montessori has a price upon her head. Her traitorous uncle has murdered her father and seized her home. Her only hope of survival, and of regaining her birthright, is an alliance with her childhood nemesis, the infamous mercenary Il Diavolo. The most irritating—and seductive—man Cara’s ever met.
Battle hardened and world-weary, Alessandro del Sarto has earned the sobriquet Il Diavolo. He needs a politically expedient marriage to secure the lasting peace he craves,
but the simpering ladies of court hold little interest. More than anything, he longs for a challenge.Headstrong beauty Cara has always been Il Diavolo’s only weakness, the one woman he’s never been able to forget. When she appears at his door begging for help, the two strike a devil’s bargain. In return for his assistance, for two weeks Cara must entertain his guests, relieve his boredom—and warm his bed.
Cara has no intention of succumbing to del Sarto’s studied seduction, but the passion that simmers between them is more potent than her paper twists of gunpowder. Surrounded by danger and intrigue, she must choose between what she’s always thought of as her destiny, and what could be the greatest prize of all—her heart’s desire.
Reading K.C. Bateman’s The Devil to Pay was like revisiting the medieval/renaissance romances that were popular a few decades ago: the stakes are high, the protagonists are locked into a contest of wills, and the drama keeps you flipping pages until the very end. And because this book isn’t actually from the 1980s, the alpha male is merely an alpha male, and not a rapist in sheep’s clothing.
The year is 1492, the Borgias have control of the Vatican, and Cara di Montessori’s father was just assassinated. After barely escaping the ambush with her own life, Cara rides straight to the Devil—that is, to Alessandro del Sarto, a notorious mercenary known as “Il Diavolo.” After some persuasion, Alessandro agrees to help, but like any good soldier-for-hire, he wants something in exchange: Cara.
Cara agrees to Alessandro’s terms, but they both know she has no intention of keeping her end of the bargain.
From here, the story launches into a hilarious clash of personalities underlaid with sexual tension as well as the larger backdrop of Italian politics at the end of the 15th century. I’ve rarely had so much fun reading a book, to be honest.
What I especially liked about The Devil to Pay was how it took familiar tropes and clichés, but brought a fresh take. (This is what any good romance novel does.) We’ve all read books about opinionated tomboys who know how to wield a sword, about enigmatic men with secret hearts of gold who are convinced they don’t deserve love. Books where the main schtick is “I will do X thing for you if you agree to be my mistress” are a dime a dozen. The trick is to make the reader forget that they’ve read the same trope umpteen times before, to give them what they want and expect without making it seem derivative. That is good romance, that that’s what Bateman has done here.
Reading this book gave me the same level of breezy enjoyment I have when watching an old Errol Flynn swashbuckler. The story was smart, snappy, and full of action. The Devil to Pay was an absolute pleasure to read from beginning to end.
