#adorable plot moppets

Ardent and scandalous Seraphina Arden sets the hearts of good English men and women afire with her rakish lifestyle and even more salacious memoirs. They’re a best seller, and for a woman living on her own funding not only her libertine lifestyle but also her feminist causes, money is much needed. Which is why Seraphina returns to the storm-swept coasts of her youth to put her in the mindset to pen the long awaited sequel to her first set of memoirs.

There, she meets Adam Anderson. The kindly widowed Scottish architect with two adorable children and an utterly spotless reputation. He’s the good boy to her bad girl, so naturally she must have him. But Adam is unwilling and unable to give in to the passion offered by her, even though every fiber of his being sings to him to submit.

This isn’t your typical rakish rogue romance.

Set in 1797, the Rakess flips historical romance on its ear. It features an alpha heroine. A hard drinking, hard romancing, alpha heroine. The kind that if she were written as a man no one would blink an eyelid at. Seriously, every single one of Seraphina’s mannerisms wouldn’t be out of place on a stereotypical alpha hero/rake/rogue. And that’s part of the charm and the whole bloody point. Seraphina reminds me in many ways of George Sand, who also was a hard drinking, hard romancing, alpha woman. She’s got shades of Mary Wollenscraft as well. She’s very rooted in her age and her characterization is part of the joy. And like all good rakes, she’s got a dark and troubled past that needs the love of a good person to soothe.

Enter Adam... He’s what we would call a beta hero. He is not dominant, but he isn’t a doormat either. He’s got his own goals and to reach them he’s going to have to decide truly what matters to him. He’s the kind of being a hero who has to worry about his reputation. He’s got two small children a career which requires him to have the goodwill of those in charge. It’s dangerous for him to have a relationship with the Rakess, Seraphina Arden. Adam, our hero, slips into the role that women typically Inhabit in romance.

I’m not going to lie, it does take some getting used to. And let me tell you, my reaction exposed some deep seated internalized sexism and misogyny that I hadn’t realized I was carrying. I suspect that for some this discomfort would lessen their enjoyment of the story. For me, the realization heightened my pleasure.

I mean, let’s take a long hard look at that cover.

Look at it. Look at it hard.

I’ve placed it between two old school covers (please excuse the Fabio) to help illustrate my point.

It’s a call back to the clinch covers that were rampant in the 80s and 90s and still pop up today (although they have been replaced sadly by illustrated covers and headless torsos). There’s the strong grab by the Alpha Character. The one handed “I can do other stuff while I ravage you!” The intense look of “I want to sex you up and you’re going to let me.” All of that is in the WOMAN’S pose of the Rakess when historically it’s been the MAN’S position in Heterosexual romance. Then there’s the Beta character. We’ve got the closed eyes. The thrown back head. The slight grab that isn’t so much dominant but “I must hold on to something else I faint from sheer pleasure.” Again, the roles are switched on the cover. The man is the one succumbing to the pleasure promised whereas historically that role has been the woman’s. The man is the “passive one” while the woman is the “active one” and that is a huge switch. I mean, even the font is a dead on match for some of the “old school” clinch covers.As is the stormy background. And frankly I love it. The publisher, the author, and the cover designer deserve a fuck ton of kudos for this. And there’s a lot more going on here than in the majority of Illustrated covers recently.

But that’s just my opinion. LOL

Going deeper, there is a lot of historical accuracy in play in this book. From ways of preventing STDs (the heroine has a condom that she makes people use), to the reality that sugar was a direct result of slave labor (much like how chocolate is today). The fights that the sirens go through and the troubles that they experience are all very real. The fact that there is a double standard that they face is very real. They are women who are fighting against millennia of built up systems put in place to keep them docile and obedient. And if they stepped out of that place, they were often stamped down or hammered back into place by any means necessary. 

So this is me telling you that there’s going to be some social commentary in this book. And there are some triggers that people should be aware of: Prior Sexual Abuse, Death in Childbirth, Prior Child Abandonment, Period Appropriate Sexism, Period appropriate misogyny, period appropriate racism.

So, I Liked this book. I liked it a lot. It’s a fun read. There’s a good plot. I believed the romance. The characters were well written. I like that it challenged my preconceived notions and that it made me somewhat uncomfortable when I realized that I’ve still got my own internalized misogyny that I have to deal with. And like I mentioned before, that may be why so many other reviewers had trouble with this book. This is a book that forces you to take a very hard look at what you expect in romance and understand that there’s still a lot of internalized sexism and misogyny prevalent throughout the genre. Just like the cover, there’s a lot deeper going on here.

It’s a good book.

And it’s a romance I’m happy to recommend. It’s a romance that’s going to stick with me. And it’s a romance that I’m going to want to read again. And for that I give this… Five stars

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

All her life, Tessa Jenkins has had two goals: find the man who fathered her and open her own millinery shop. In order to do the latter, she needs to do the former because buying a shop takes money. Money she doesn't have. When she happens to overhear two patrons at the shop she's working at discussing that the Duke of Carlin, Guy Whitby, has gone through yet another governess, she lands on an idea -- present herself as a prospective governess for his unruly and ill-behaved daughter. After all, living in a duke's household will allow her a better opportunity to discover who her father might be. She never plans on caring about the duke's daughter or the duke himself.

Guy Whitby never expected to be duke. After all, he was fifth in line to the title, but after a spate of accidents and illnesses, that's just what he is. He wanted to be a scientist, traveling the world, not an elite member of society with matchmaking mamas throwing their daughters at him. Speaking of daughters, he has to do something with her. She's been horribly spoiled and has managed to scare away every single agency-vouched governess in less than a week. He is, quite frankly, desperate. Which is why he's willing to give the singularly unsuitable Miss Jenkins a chance. It has nothing to do with his attraction to her. No, not at all...

This was a charming romance with a hint of mystery behind it. As you might expect, there is definitely conflict when it comes to the class difference between Tessa and Guy, but it's not the only conflict. There's the mystery of who Tessa's noble father is. As well as the Carlin Curse to deal with. Then there's the needs of a child who has been traumatized and used as a pawn against her father. There's a lot going on here, even if the conflict on the surface doesn't seem great, that changes as the story goes on.

Tessa is an absolutely lovely character. Smart, funny, and kind. She's good with children because growing up in an orphanage she had to be.  Think Dickensian conditions and you won't be far off. She's got trauma and a history, but it's tempered her. Made her kind and considerate. At the same time, she's not TSTL. Sure, she makes some missteps and mistakes, but she also gets herself out of them. It's refreshing. She’s also amazeballs with Sophy, Guy’s daughter. And I really loved how Sophy and her storyline was handled.

Guy is an interesting character. Complex. At times he's kind and gentle while at others he's didactic and overbearing. When he wants something, he manipulates circumstances to get what he wants. And I didn't always like that. What I did love was his interest in the natural world and his scholarly bent. It was neat to see, and it was wholly appropriate for the time period (warts and all).

The book isn't perfect. There's some clunky exposition in the beginning, some potentially dubious consent (she gets herself tipsy so that she has the courage to let herself be seduced and the hero goes along with it -- it’s not fully dubious since she made her decision before she got drunk, but it’s not fully consensual either since the discussion wasn’t had between them before she got tipsy). Plus some other stuff later that's too spoilery for a review that had me shaking my head *points to the hero being overbearing*. And while it is technically a series the book can fully stand on its own.

But all said, the book really is a lovely light read.

Four stars.

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

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For Crown and Country, that is the maxim that Major Langley Stanhope has lived his life by. A spy in His Majesty's Service he's on the hunt for an elusive codebook. He's almost got his hands on it when disaster strikes. His operative has been discovered, followed. And worse, must ditch the book, swapping it out with another's, before the precious codebook could fall into enemy hands. Now it is up to Stanhope to retrieve it... a task that is more difficult than it first appears.

All Lady Amanda Bartlett, the dowager Countess of Kingston, wanted to do that early morning was purchase a book on geometry for her eldest son for his twelfth birthday. She never expected to be plowed into by a man in a non-descript greatcoat nor did she expect to discover that the bookshop had wrapped the wrong book, a french cookbook whose proportions are all wrong, by mistake. Ah well, she'll sort it out tomorrow. But nothing is ever easy as it seems.

When she and Langley meet, sparks fly. The kind of sparks that she's never experienced before. But with those sparks comes danger, and possibly, quite possibly, love.

I'd had the pleasure of reading the first book in this series and enjoying it greatly. So when the opportunity arose for me to read the second, I jumped on it. I am so glad I did. This book is wonderful... quite possibly better than the first, if possible.

First, the spy portion of the series truly comes into its own in this series. The whole book is one lovely hunt for not only the codebook but also the people who so desperately want to recover it. There's some great foreshadowing and twists and turns leading up to a wonderfully satisfying conclusion. I quite loved it.

Additionally I absolutely loved the characters and their character arcs. Which were tied inexorably to the main plot, but also added depth and enjoyment to the book. Amanda, our heroine, starts off very much a wallflower. She is not a merry widow and is being suffocated under the indomitable wills of both her mother and her sons' guardian, who she suspects wants to marry her, She longs for something more, an adventure. And she finds what she wanted with Langley. 

As for our hero, he's a wonderful chameleon but with a core of not really knowing where he belongs. He lives outside of society never really fitting in anywhere even as he has identities everywhere. He's intelligent, roguish, caring, closed off, and so much more. I loved that he wasn't overly muscled or unwilling to get his hands dirty. He wears spectacles and has a classical education, but he's also equally at home on the streets of London. And did I mention he wears glasses? Like I am struggling to come up with more than handful of Romance Heroes who do wear glasses. Heroines? Sure! But men? 

Gimme those spectacle wearing men please!!!

The side characters were also well done, particularly Amanda's sons. I loved Jamie and Pip and part of me wants their story when they are old enough to find love.Seriously. I want to read more from this author and her characters.

In all this was a lovely book to spend a weekend reading, and I give this:

Five Stars

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

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