Eve Pendle

Once a Fallen Lady by Eve Pendle is the historical romance book I have been patiently waiting for.

Annie's polio makes it hard on her single other Lydia, but don't worry too much loyal readers... Alfred Lowe, Annie's school professor, comes to the rescue. Alfred and Lydia hit it off and a beautiful romance begins to bloom. But, the rent is too high and continues to climb, and Lydia's ex-husband is a wee bit of a mysterious issue... Things will get messy, but you know they always turn out great in the end.

I love getting SO lucky with romance books that I'm able to deep dive into them and disappear from the world in an epic binge. This book was such a lovely read and it pulled at all the heart strings. Organic romance that will give you shivers, a shocking scheme that will blow your mind, and a relationship that blooms so naturally you'll be begging for more. I honestly loved Eve Pendle's writing! It can be really hard to write an engaging historical romance without the political nonsense, and Eve made it perfect.

I want to read more by Eve Pendle. This book is a must read and so far one of my faves of 2022.

Four out of five stars.

I received this book for free from the author, Eve Pendle, in exchange for an honest review.… (more)

Eve Pendle takes some common tropes and subverts them in Falling for a Rake, book 1 in her Fallen series. While out hunting for ferns, botanist Lady Emily falls in a hole. With a rake. Overnight.
The rake, Lord Markshall, shows her a bit of his inner truth but is insistent that he's a consummate ne'er-do-well and that she shouldn't expect anything good from him. Except, of course, they're stuck in a hole overnight and this is Victorian England.
To save her reputation, Markshall declares them engaged to the onlookers the following morning as they're rescued and well... here comes the fake engagement/marriage of convenience/oh no we have feelings. At one point, I was utterly tired of Markshall's insistence that he was not in fact a rake to be redeemed, even as he kept up his public facade as a way to secretly influence politics on behalf of the poor and oppressed.
Turns out though, he had done some truly despicable things in the past and I wasn't sure I wanted him to be redeemed. Here's where it gets interesting though: Pendle has him acknowledge on page that he can't fix any of the things he did in the past. He can only try to do better from now on. AND Lady Emily has quite the skeleton in her proverbial closet as well.
So while I was annoyed by Markshall's "she's too good and pure for me" internal monologue, I was pleased that both of them have a less than pure past and they kind of deserve each other.
Have we ever had a heroine who needs to be redeemed as much as the rakish hero? Hm. Probably, but I've not read it.
I also liked that the two of them have a physical relationship before it turns into an emotional one. He falls first, but doesn't want to. She is caught up in ideas of what a "proper" lady does and feels and chastises herself for wanting physical intimacy... but she can't keep herself away. I liked her whole journey with accepting her past and present to make way for an emotionally healthy future. It's really well done.
There's quite a bit of gender essentialism here, however. Not at all the worst I've read and it falls far shy of a lot of older historical romance, but the author chooses to write in bits about how male or how feminine each character is and that's one of the standards of the subgenre that I'd love to do away with. There isn't one way to perform gender nor is there one way for a body to look. ie, if my waist doesn't flare gently into rounded hips, am I not feminine? Hm. We should be able to appreciate a body in ways that don't imply that bodies that don't fit that archetype are less. However, this is a society thing and it's not like any one book is responsible for the gender binary.
In all, this was a solid historical romance read with a botanist heroine, a secretly-good politician/rake hero, quite a bit of steam and a satisfying ending.

Audio notes: Catherine Bilson does a great job here. I sometimes struggle with dual POV romance with a single narrator, but I thought she captured Markshall and Emily's internal worlds well. It's hard to tell if that was due to her skill or the author's, so I give credit to both. :)

I received an audio copy of this book from the author for review.… (more)