Book five in Sabrina Jeffries’ the School for Heiresses series, Don’t Bargain with the Devil, is the story of Lucinda Seton, a teacher at the finishing school all of the heroines in each novel of the series are in some way connected to, and the famous magician Diego Montalvo. Diego is sent to England by Lucy’s grandfather, Don Carlos, (whom she has no knowledge of) to find her, because he is told that she was stolen from her real parents as an infant. In return for finding her and bringing her back to Spain, Don Carlos will return to him his ancestral home that his mother had to sell after the Peninsular Wars devastated their vineyard, bankrupting them. Diego is actually Don Diego, Conde de Leon, but has ceased using his title to avoid bringing scandal to his family name as he performs as a magician.

The novel, overall, has a good story, but the telling of it was rather disappointing. Jeffries is one of the few authors who makes me salivate in anticipation of upcoming books, and so far the Heiresses series has been phenomenal.  This novel, however, felt slapped together, and there was too much going on. Not only is Diego deceiving Lucy, but she also has been semi-jilted by a former love interest. Peter Burnes was a childhood friend who recently inherited the title Earl of Hunsforth, and upon that inheritance, decided that Lucy attracted too much attention, due to her Spanish bloodlines, to become a decent countess. He decides upon another woman almost immediately, and Lucy is forced to endure the presence of both at a fundraiser she holds for the school.

“I suppose you have surmised that Lady Juliana has consented to be my wife.”

Lady Juliana cast him an adoring smile, then cast Lucy a gloating one.

Lucy forced down the bile rising in her throat and somehow wished them joy, though she wanted nothing more than to wipe the gloating smile off Lady Juliana’s face with a sturdy kick to the rump.

It is not the writing of the novel itself, which is not spectacular, but just decent enough, that causes problems. It is the construction of the novel that gave me the feeling it was put together in a hurry. There is quite a bit of back and forth between each plot point, and it felt like nothing was developed well. Also, I felt there was no climax. Yes, the story had a “romance novel story arc” where the couple meet and then work toward sleeping together and/or falling in love, but that arc was minuscule. There was no great tension between the couple, making the few sex scenes cheesy.

“Ah, mi dulzura,” he rasped as he dropped to one knee to caress her breast more in earnest. “I wish I could devour every part of you.”

The plot line of Diego finding Lucy for her grandfather played out calmly, with a slight disturbance when Lucy discovered she had been deceived, but then Jeffries throws in another plot line, where Lucy finds out what her grandfather has promised Diego in return, and decides to just go along with traveling to Spain. Then the story ends abruptly, with all the secrets revealed and acceptances of lies and past wrongs completed in a matter of pages.

In the end, I felt that this novel was simply a filler between book four in the series and the final novel, which comes out June 23. Other than the short introductory paragraphs at the beginning of each chapter, Jefferies’ way of beginning to tell the story of book six throughout the first five books of the series, the novel itself does not add to the series in any way. I was disappointed. I felt I had wasted my time reading this novel. However, I will read book six in hopes that Jeffries has spent more time putting it together, and that the story she has been hinting at for five books is worth it.

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