Were attractive books bound by European and decorated? (7)
I believe the answer is:
enticed
'were attractive' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'books bound by european and decorated?' is the wordplay.
'books' becomes 'NT' (New Testament).
'bound by' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are held or bound).
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'decorated?' becomes 'iced' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'e'+'iced'='eiced'
'nt' inserted within 'eiced' is 'ENTICED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for enticed that I've seen before include "Persuaded with attractive offer" , "were seductive" , "Given inducement" , "Tempted, lured" .)