Month: June 2020

A Rogue No More by Lana Williams

On By TracyIn Georgian Era (1714-1837), Regency Era (1811-1820), Tracy's ReviewsLeave a comment

A Rogue No More (The Rogue Chronicles, #3)A Rogue No More by Lana Williams

Tracy’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: The Rogue Chronicles, #3

Release Date: June 23, 2020

After the death of his father, Thomas Raybourne is tasked by his brother, the new Earl of Carlington with turning the family publishing business into a success. Thomas has no experience in publishing and is widely known as a rogue, a reputation he relished until just a few months ago. Now he is focused and wants to succeed, he has overhauled the entire publishing operation and learns that unfortunately the only book they have that is making any money is a murder mystery written by A. Golden. But he is shocked to learn that A. Golden is actually Miss Annabelle Gold, the lovely girl he kissed on a moonlit terrace a few months ago!

Annabelle has a passion for writing and used her talent to help her family financially when her father’s business began to decline along with his memory. But now that her sister Caroline married the Earl of Aberland and things have begun to look up for the family, Annabelle can once again write for the pure joy of it. She has written the second book in her mystery series and has been waiting to hear from her publisher. When she doesn’t hear anything for weeks, she finally makes the trip to their office. She is just as shocked to find Thomas there as he was to see her – but he is surprisingly supportive and eager to publish the next installment. She can’t deny that she is attracted to Thomas, but a deep-seated fear of losing herself if she marries has her keeping all potential suitors at bay – including Thomas.

They make plans to reissued the first book and publish the second one, but just as they finalize their plans, there is a murder that clearly mimics a murder in her first book. They decide to hold off publishing until the murderer is caught and work together to find out who (and why) they are using her book as inspiration. They stumble across a potential suspect, which ends with them forced into a betrothal, yet gives them no evidence to stop the murderer. But when a second mimicked murder doesn’t tie to the victim of the first murder, they race to stop their villain before they can strike again. All the while, Annabelle and Thomas grow closer and wonder if they can defy the odds and find their own HEA. But when the villain approaches Thomas and threatens to destroy someone he loves; will Thomas be able to thwart them or will he make Annabelle’s worst fears come true?

I thought this was a well written, nicely paced book with likeable characters, very low steam love scenes and an interesting mystery. Thomas and Annabelle are a wonderful pairing and you can’t help but root for their HEA, the mystery was good, but the villain wasn’t much of a surprise to this reader. There were cameos from previous characters and I enjoyed catching up with Caroline, Aberland, Louisa and Granger and was thrilled that there was an epilogue. This is the third book in the series, but it can easily be read as a stand-alone title.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Regency Era (1811-1820)2 Comments

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby (Rogues and Remarkable Women, #1)Barbara’s rating: 3.5/4 of 5 stars

Series: Rogues and remarkable Women #1
Publication Date: 6/30/20
/Number of Pages: 320

This was my first book by this author and it was a very enjoyable read. The storyline was unique for the Regency period and it was well presented. One unusual thing in the story’s presentation was that it alternated between first and third person which may bother some readers, but not others. While this wasn’t an unusually long book, I felt as if it took me a long time to read it – even though it didn’t. I’m not sure why that was – just me I guess. The story moved along at a good clip and it was well-plotted, but I did think the villain was a bit of a fizzle. While there was both a romance and a villain, I did feel that they were subservient to the story the author wanted to tell – which was the treatment and lack of acceptance of people of color during the Regency period.

Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington, was severely wounded and lost a limb at the battle of Badajoz. He was Wellington’s right-hand-man and dearly wants to get back to the battlefield. I did come to like Busick, but it didn’t come easily. I think that was mostly because he seemed to be a cardboard caricature of a dedicated military man. I loved his determination to care for and protect his new ward, Lionel Jordan, who is the son of his much-loved cousin, Colin.

Patience Jordan was a lovely character and I admired her courage and loving heart. I liked her as soon as she graced the page. Just after the death of her mother, she fell madly in love with Colin Jordan. Almost as soon as they married, they left her West Indies home, Demerara, and traveled to Colin’s home in England. Patience did all she could do to please Colin – she adopted English ways, she perfected her speech, but Colin always left her at home in the country while he lived mostly in London. He explained that he was doing it to protect her because as a Mulatto (or Blackamoor – I was never sure which) she would be ridiculed and not accepted.

When Colin committed suicide, his uncle, Markham, swooped in and took over. He put Patience in Bedlam and took over custody of Lionel. The story is about Patience doing whatever she had to do to gain custody of her son and to escape England. You’ll love how selfless, brave, and loving she is.

There wasn’t much time spent telling us exactly what The Widow’s Grace society is nor how it came to be. We are to just accept that it exists and that they found and rescued these two ladies from Bedlam. I really wish that there was more focus on who Patience was as a person rather than what she was. I understand that the author wanted to focus on the story as a person of color, but that isn’t all she was. I wanted to get to know and like her for who she was, and there was some of that – just not enough to suit me.

We got to meet the featured characters of the next book and I liked both of them. They are both mixed-race as well and are struggling to find acceptance within London society. Since I liked both characters in this book, I’ll give the next one a read as well.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.