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Thursday, January 23, 2014

Between a Rake and a Hard Place by Connie Mason and Mia Marlowe

9781402272462Title: Between A Rake And A Hard Place

Author: Connie Mason and Mia Marlowe

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

ISBN: 978-1-4022-7246-2

Genre: Historical Romance

Release Date: January 2104

Formats Available: Mass Market Paperback & E-books $7.99

How I Read It: Mass Market Arc from Publisher

Rating: 4.5 Crowns

Lady Serena's List of Forbidden Pleasures

Attend an exclusively male club.

Smoke a cigar.

Have a fortune told by gypsies.

Dance the scandalous waltz.

Sir Jonah Sharp thinks Lady Serena Osbourne will be just like any other debutante, and seducing her will be one of the easiest services he's ever done for the Crown. Then he catches her wearing trousers and a mustache in his gentleman's club and she demands he teach her to smoke a cigar. But what will truly be Jonah's undoing is finding out he's an item on her list too, which makes him determined to bring her all the forbidden pleasures she can handle. (taken from publishers website)

My Thoughts:

Lady Serena Osbourne is the last contender in the Hymen's War Terrific*. The Duke of Kent has set his sights on her, but he hasn’t asked for her hand yet so Serena is intent to complete her list of forbidden before her job becomes producing Royal heirs.

Sir Jonah Sharp is being blackmailed about his possible involvement in a failed military operation days before the Battle of Waterloo. Even though what he’s being blackmailed with is false, he has no choice but to do as the blackmailer wish and ruin the intended bride of the Duke of Kent in hopes of stopping the Hanover succession.

What Jonah failed to take into account was just how close he would become to his intended target.

Between a Rake and a Hard Place is my favorite book in the Royal Rakes trilogy.

There is a secret side to Jonah—one that makes him the most mysterious and damaged of the three rakes. I won’t reveal too much, but needless to say Jonah is a wounded and weary man—and I do love a wounded hero— who has a valuable side he’s willingly to share with the heroine. You will most definitely want to get to know Jonah and discover the secret of how he earned—and keeps—his title.

Serena, like the previous two heroines in the Royal Rakes trilogy, is a strong-willed heroine although from time-to-time a hint of naivety comes seeping through. She knows it’s her duty to marry the Duke of Kent and in a sense has become reconciled with that fate, until she meets Jonah who has her questioning if she’s making the right choice.

The chemistry between Serena and Jonah continued to grow from their first meeting to the last page at a steady—and realistic rate.

I think that Between a Rake and a Hard Place contains a great deal of mystery and hushed secrets, which I love in a romance novel, although the plot was still heavily focused on the romance.

Overall, I loved this novel. It would have been a 5 Crown rating had some of the events in the book not been talked about too much before they actually happened. I’m a bit sad to see this trilogy come to an end but I must say it went out with a bang.

Cover Love: Why hello, Jonah! Seriously, In love with this cover. I would most definitely pick it up and check him, um, it out!

*Hymen's War Terrific Race in 1818, the year Queen Victoria was conceived, to produce a future heir to the throne when George III was old and senile; his son, the future George IV, had produced one child, Princess Charlotte, but she had just died. The line of succession then passed to the siblings of George IV or their heirs. The race involved three of George III’s 14 children: the Duke of Clarence (later William IV); the Duke of Kent (Victoria’s father), and the Duke of Cambridge.

 

Read my reviews of the first two book in The Royal Rakes trilogy 

142968882Waking Up With a Rake

9781402272431[3]One Night With A Rake

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