Caroline Linden

A refreshing read: it's so nice to read a historical romance where the heroine is fully capable and the hero isn't so domineering as to be considered abusive. Angelique is a skilled English spy of French origin who speaks multiple languages. Nate is an American shipping heir who has hidden skills of his own. He's enough of a man to recognize that Angelique holds the upper hand and he lets her do her job. The author respects the reader enough to not make Angelique a virgin hold out but also show more not make her sexual past a plot point. The conflict feels real, the dilemma seems insurmountable right up until the end. show less

3.5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Bianca resolved before noon on her wedding day that she would hate and despise her husband for the rest of her life.

About a Rogue kicks off the Desperately Seeking Duke series with an intriguing start. Readers might be thrown at first as we get the story first and then the characters, which is different from the more typical introduction to show more characters and then we follow them to get the story. Here, we are first introduced to the Duchess of Carlyle and her man Mr. Edwards and through their discussion and the duchess' musings, we learn that her younger son has just died. This is particularly important because her husband is dead and her oldest son is intellectually disabled, an heir is needed for the vast and rich Carlyle dukedom. Mr. Edwards has discovered three possible heirs, “An army man, a cardsharp, or a Frenchman,”, choices the duchess isn't particularly excited about. When the army man, Captain Andrew St. James and the cardsharp, Maximilian St. James show up, she interviews them and explains that she will give them an allowance and keep a watch over them to see how responsible and settled they are and in six months time they are to report back to her. Max is the second heir behind the captain but he has had at least one foot in poverty all his life and is determined to not let this opportunity pass him by, he's going to find a way to turn the duchess' allowance into a permanent flow of money he can control.

He suspected they had both acted on impulse, even if her impulse sprang from passion and fury while his came from an iron-willed determination not to let this opportunity slide through his grasp.

Bianca has lived in Perusia all her life, a town founded by her father's pottery works business, she loves creating new glazes and working there. When a man starts coming around and her father is impressed with his fine London ways, connections to a dukedom, and seems to be trying to court her older sister Cathy, Bianca is instantly on her guard. Bianca knows that Cathy is in love with the local curate and when their father approves a marriage between them, Bianca helps Cathy plan her elopement. When the day of the wedding comes and there is no bride, Bianca and her father fight and push each other until Bianca agrees to marry Max in Cathy's place, thinking Max will refuse. Max just wanting to accomplish a stakehold in Perusia, agrees to marry Bianca.

Even in his plain, sober clothing, wearing spectacles and reading a dust-dry contract. Obviously he knew he was a handsome man. Bianca was wildly annoyed that she had to know it, too.

With the marriage of convenience, there is also some enemies-to-lovers and Taming of the Shrew. Bianca only calls Max “That Man” and will test your resolve with her very caustic and borderline bratty attitude. Max through it all just plays the calm and unruffled husband trying to build and implement some new ideas to improve Perusia, while also non-confrontationally challenging Bianca. It's around the 40% mark that Bianca starts to thaw towards him and their relationship takes over as the focus of the story as they travel to London for some Vauxhall sexiness and then come home for what turns out to be some foreplay in the form of a competitive game of cricket. There's obviously some slow burn to this couple but what I really enjoyed was how there felt like purpose to their sex scenes. Max decides early that he won't push anything or in fact act on any signs from Bianca until she is all in with her desire, which can be read as Max wanting that emotional connection from her. They start off oil and water but as each emotional connection is built, so is the feeling of desire and it made the eventual physical scenes have that much more heat to them.

No one had ever spoken to her like that. No one had ever looked at her this way. It made her feel wild and beautiful and powerful, that this man wanted her.

This story was more about the present time and Max and Bianca connecting. There is some background to Max, his father being a wastrel, his mother writing to the Duke of Carlyle for financial help and only receiving a five pound note, and his aunt ending up caring for him, that explained aspects of his personality and helped fill out his character. Bianca was outshone by him as her beginning attitude was aggravating in The Shrew way. I also thought that the ending issue with Max's aunt had a bit of forced in drama, instead of adding to the story, feel. Overall, though, this had an appreciated different feel to it while still giving the tried and true Vauxhall but adding in some interesting pottery works elements. Max and Bianca were a sparking spot to stop off at for a while in the overarching plot of finding an heir for the Carlyle dukedom. The ending brings us back to the beginning with the Captain and, as of now, first in line heir, not heard from for a while and missing. This series started off fresh and intriguing, I'm looking forward the next.

He smiled, that lazy rogue’s smile that both put her on guard and made something inside her soften treacherously. show less

This was a pleasant read with well written characters, humour and all the drama and refuse-to-admit-we-have-attraction a good romance requires. I particularly enjoyed that the female characters did not fall headlong into stereotypes of the period or genre. They remained feminine, somewhat bound by societal rules but also had intellect, compassion and strength. Hannah, as a vicar's widow, is able to explain some of her meeker behaviours on upbringing and her station during her first marriage show more yet leaves no doubt as to her true feelings and is willing to bypass propriety when warranted. Linden writes her as a flushed out character who has a belief code that she lives by but who also has true emotions, reactions and considers her instinctive reactions against public expectation rather than swooning or turning to hysterics as other authors would have her do. Marcus and David Reece are also more than stereotypes once you turn a few pages, bringing dimension to the various relationships in this novel. The inclusion of Hannah's daughter, Molly, is handled very well. She serves as motive for Hannah's actions and as a means to explore the personalities of several characters by way of their interactions with her. Any good romance needs some drama to sustain it and Linden opens the story with a dramatic trickery that forces our reluctant lovers together. She is correct in knowing that more adventure is needed later to urge the characters to their final realizations, but the sub plot concerning counterfeit money and a nefarious challenger to out hero did not fit as well as it could have. Hinted at from the beginning, too little detail was given to the reader until the end. It made it hard for this reader to care very much about this part of the story. The only merit I found in this 'mystery' was in the brief interactions between brothers David and Marcus and then between Hannah and Marcus. I did enjoy seeing the brothers interact as a team rather than their usual adversarial relationship. A nice Saturday read...and yes, I am curious about the continuation of the Reece family romances in What a Rogue Desires (David's story) and A Rake's Guide to Seduction (little sister Celia's story). Perhaps I'll look one of them up some other Saturday. show less

*** UPDATE: I just learned the author will be writing "A Giant Series Epilogue" (her words) that will release within a couple of weeks of the publication of this book. The author is currently taking questions and suggestions for what to include in that epilogue. So, while that doesn't make the conclusion of this book any more satisfying, it does give us the opportunity to see what happens and get the answers we are craving. I'm leaving my review as I originally published it because this new show more book doesn't change what I thought of the book. However, it does offer us the opportunity to get our grand wrap-up in another book. *****

Well – what can I say? I absolutely loved the romance between Will and Philippa and would have rated it 5-stars, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a more dissatisfying series ending. The wrap-up was just suddenly there and then it was just as suddenly gone and left me wanting more information, more interactions, more completion. For me, that wrap-up was a 2-star at best. I think the book either needed at least two more chapters OR a super-long epilogue.

The Prologue was the polar opposite of the Epilogue. It was a wonderfully heartwarming story of the meeting between the Duchess of Carlyle and 3-year-old Philippa Noor un-nisa Kirkpatrick. I hadn’t previously been a fan of the Duchess, but as I read that scene – and then learned more of the family’s history throughout the book, I did warm up to her a bit.

Philippa’s mother was Indian and her father, a Colonel, was English. Her parents met, fell in love, and defied everyone so they could marry. After the death of her mother, Philippa’s father meets, falls in love with, and marries the daughter of the Duchess of Carlyle. After the deaths of her stepmother and her father, Philippa is raised as the beloved granddaughter at Carlyle Castle. Philippa is everything you could want in a heroine – she’s sweet, considerate, caring, intelligent, realistic, wise – and a bit sly at managing the Duchess.

William (Will) Montclair and his brother Jack have arrived in London at the behest of their father, to set up a branch of Montclair and Sons (a merchant shipping company). Will was in charge of getting the business going, but he really didn’t want to be. Will really wanted to be out of the business because he didn’t enjoy it – and his brother Jack did, so why not let Jack be the one in charge. After all, their father was all the way across the ocean in Boston. When an opportunity presents itself, he takes it. Jack is in charge of setting up a London branch for their shipping company and Will is off on a new adventure as a steward for a large estate. What can go wrong with that scenario?

Everyone at the estate quickly falls in love with Will – well, everyone except the Duchess. She takes an instant dislike to him and would gladly dismiss him. How dare he challenge her, argue with her, tell her she was wrong? But, her son finds him delightfully entertaining and thoroughly enjoys Will’s company. Since the duchess will do absolutely anything for her son, Will stays employed.

The growth in the relationship between Will and Philippa is delightful to see and I could thoroughly believe the attraction and the relationship. I also loved that it was all pretty much angst-free. So – kudos for the delightful romance.

However, the romance isn’t the entire book and the rest of it left much to be desired. I had more questions at the end than I did at the beginning. For instance – two mysterious French characters are introduced and then they just disappear. They aren’t mentioned again, so what happened to them and their scheme? Do we really have a new heir for the duchy? How about the new heir's relationship with the duchess? In my humble opinion, the secret should have been revealed a bit earlier and then the subsequent chapters could have dealt with the aftermath, re-establishing relationships, etc. – OR – add a couple of additional chapters. At any rate – the end was just too abrupt, too incomplete, and I just felt a bit cheated.

I do recommend the read because the romance is lovely, but don’t expect to end the series feeling good about the whole thing.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. show less