I really, really liked this book. Like almost loved it. I would have awarded 5 stars except for the language around sex work/ers. Romance writers consistently fall short when it comes to writing about sex work/ers and they need to do better. The premise of this story is that the MMC had a (inaccurate) story leak to the tabloids about his sexual preferences. This resulted in him loosing his position in his charity work. The issue I have is that sex workers were the ones to speak to the media about this although it should be widely understood that sw'ers want to keep their jobs so THEY DO NOT GO TO MEDIA AND NAME NAMES. It's not a thing. This makes an already vulnerable population look even worse than the media portrays them. Also, the MMC did not use services provided by sw'ers anyway so it just doubled down on this idea that sw'ers are the real enemy.

Then, the MMC has a lot of big long boilerplate response to porn and sw - how it is degrading etc etc. And like I think the book was trying to make his character someone who has hang-ups about power exchange since he was constantly worried about using his position as a famous rugby player to get women. BUT it wasn't really clear that is the issue. The FMC does kind of shut him down on his anti-porn position by mentioning that you can buy directly from people if you are worried about ethics involved and that not everyone that makes it feels exploited. So that I really appreciate but I still feel that the MMC's words about sw were given more weight.

Anyway - the hero has a voyeur kink and a lot of the build-up with the heroine was extremely steamy and I enjoyed it very much. ( )

Welll I was hoping for more voyeurism (heh). It was a cute book! ( )

Okay, I know Voyeur is in the title but I read the earlier books and was familiar with Will, the sweet farmboy rugby player, so the big reveal of his secret threw me a lot. Josie is the quirky girl who is set up as his roommate and also to keep him on the straight and narrow. It's a funny, delicious story that I really enjoyed and a fitting end to the series. ( )

I can honestly say the beginning of this book and the end felt crafted by two different authors. I'm not sure how they divide the books, but I could not connect to the characters for a solid 40 % it was a bunch of telling, Will came off creepy and not cause of the voyeur thing but because I got no sense if him whatsoever. Josey was fine but I didn't particularly like her.

The second half focused more on relationship and friendship intimacy. (Which is another thing: those conversations btwn friends don't work for me. And I've never liked everyone my friends like. What's up with that?) It was far better. Better humor, better everything.

But it was far too late. For some reason, I still don't get it. ( )

The Varlet and the Voyeur
Rugby, Book 4

I Picked Up This Book Because: Continue the series

The Characters:

William “Will” Moore:
Josey Kavanagh:
Elish, Brian

The Story:

I liked Will even though he seemed uncompromising at times. I liked Josey, she is very much a free spirit but she and Will seem like Yin and Yang so they blend together well. Both suffered the dreaded communication issue, their self imposed rules keeping them from each other. Oh and then there’s the matter of Will’s public scandal. It really was a shame because Will is a very stand up guy. I’m glad he found Josey, I think he loved her from his first meeting with her.

The Random Thoughts:

The tweets might have been my favorite part of this book.

3 Stars ( )