A Rogue By Any Other Name

A Rogue By Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean
Avon, 2012
386 pages
Romance; Historical
The First Rule of Scoundrels
3.5/5 stars

Source: Received an ARC from Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

Although I loved MacLean's YA debut, The Season, I found her debut romance Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake extremely unsatisfying. However I know MacLean is a good writer so I wanted to give her new series a shot. Apparently the heroine of this book was jilted in the previous series but you do not have to be familiar with those books to read this one.

And this one started very promisingly. Male lead Michael Bourne lost his entire fortune and land, everything that wasn't entailed, on a bad hand of cards to his mentor and protector, the father of his best friend. After losing everything, he is ostracized from society and driven solely by his need for revenge. He manages to rebuild and even outpace his fortune in only nine years by owning a gaming club and the final piece of the puzzle is Falconwell, which has been attached to Lady Penelope Marbury's dowry.

Penelope is a 28-year-old spinster who was jilted years earlier as her fiance sought a love match and now secretly hopes for the same herself; she wants more. I liked Penelope immediately, which made it all the harder to endure the male lead's, who is supposed to be a HERO, treatment of her. He is absolutely horrid to her. He abducts her with the cold intention of regaining his land; he could have played it much better due to their childhood friendship. He did not have to be a monster; he easily could have wooed and won her. But he chose the easy route, not the right route. And he doesn't stop there. He emotionally distances her while boring me with how much he wanted her body. There are glimpses of a decent person but only that. I cannot believe I kept reading, just to find his redemption.

Luckily that redemption was handled well and is responsible for the high rating here. I never got over my first impression of Michael especially because I loved Penelope so much and wanted more for her.  She wanted and deserved to be passionately loved but Michael just kept breaking her heart into little pieces and proving his unworthiness. I prefer a different kind of man in my romance novel.

I guess I'm kind of getting the impression that MacLean and I just don't click. I have disliked the heroes in both of the books I've read by her and not just in minor ways but in big ways that hindered my enjoyment. I'm glad I gave it another shot but I have been burned too much.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
Avon, 2010
397 pages
Historical; Romance
First in trilogy
3/5 stars

Source: Bought

Summary: Callie is tired of being the perfect spinster and is spurred to try living her life anew after hearing some less than flattering comments.  To that end, she approaches the Marquess of Ralston, the man she's been in love with for ten years, in order to have her first kiss.  He sees an innocent who nonetheless provokes and intrigues him as well as the solution to the problem of his untutored sister.

Thoughts: I mostly enjoyed MacLean's The Season and I saw largely positive reviews of this book so I thought I'd try it.  Once I got past the insanely long title, I was not enchanted.  I expected a lot of humor after enjoying the Austenesque Season but it was not really funny.  I was intrigued by the concept: a confirmed spinster decides to start pushing the bounds of propriety, including brazenly romancing a rake.  And I liked Callie a lot.  I also appreciated her points about the sexist society in which they live-very different fare than I usually see in romance novels. I somewhat liked the hero, Ralston.  He was very devoted to his brother and newfound sister.  That sister Juliana will be the heroine of the third book and she was lovely.  She was raised in Italy and shares a mother with the brothers; all of them were abandoned by the mother.  Because of that, Ralston has vowed never to love (see where this is going?) while Callie is adamant that she will have only a love match.

I didn't enjoy Callie's adventures as much as I wanted to because Ralston kept interfering in a patronizing way.  His slowness in not realizing that he loved her was infuriating and after he compromised her, his proposal of marriage sucked majorly.  There was also a lot of kissing and sex scenes which despite my love of romance novels is my least favorite part (I know for some (many?), that is the main reason to read them but I prefer humor and the clean ways they spend time together.)  However if you like that, you would probably enjoy this.

Overall: Two idiots (eventually) in love and a severe lack of humor hamper my enjoyment.

Cover: I really love the heroine's dress although there is again a cut-off head.