Francine Larabee has life figured out. Career, husband, kids. In that order. But fate had other plans.

Welcome to the world of The Rake and the Recluse. 21st century businesswoman Francine, through a fate-changing car accident, is thrust into 19th century England in the body of her ancestor Madeline Larabee. She wakes up on the estate of the delicious and stoic Gideon, the Duke of Roxleigh (AKA the Recluse), who’s just as confused by her improper attitude as Francine is by his obsession with propriety.

This book…oh this book. There’s a lot to love about it. Francine is a firebrand in a time when women are no more than property. She immediately grabs Gideon’s attention and holds on through a gripping story that will keep you turning pages from beginning to end.

Also, those pages? Some are illustrated. With photos. Beautiful photos. Jenn shot and designed all of her cover art. I love her deeply for it.

Apart from Gideon and Francine, Jenn gives us a great supporting cast through Gideon’s servants and extended family, including his delicious brother Perry, Viscount of Trumbull. We’ll get to Perry momentarily.

What I loved about Gideon and Francine’s relationship is watching Gideon’s self-restraint slowly, almost painstakingly, unravel. There are deliciously seductive moments, intense moments, beautiful moments between these two people who seem so wrong for each other and yet fit just right.

There were a few parts where I felt like Francine was accepting her life a little too easily, where I wanted to see her fiery personality come out. She tries to fit in, really, she does, but she doesn’t succeed very well or very often to the dismay of Gideon’s servants and the embarrassment of the ton. But it’s impossible to deny the chemistry between Gideon and Francine, the way moments between them smolder. They’re incredible to read and some parts will leave you breathless.

Now to Perry, the Rake.

Jenn’s book is written in six parts. Parts 1-4 are primarily about Francine and Gideon. Parts 5 and 6? Aaaaall Perry.

Perry has a bit of a reputation among the ton. He is the George Clooney of 19th century London, never gonna settle down because there’s no point. As long as Gideon is okay and able to serve his duties to the Crown, Perry’s free to do whatever he wants.

Until he meets Lilly, a servant in Gideon’s household.

Lilly offers an entirely different set of challenges than Francine. She’s been through a horribly traumatic experience that has left her fearful of a man’s touch. After her recovery, she hides away in Perry’s carriage as he’s leaving Gideon’s estate for his townhouse in London. She asks him to help her by…well…ya know. And Perry has no idea what to do. He agrees, reluctantly, at first, thinking it’ll just be casual, but as he and Lilly get to know each other, he realizes he can’t be without her.

Perry’s amazing. Normally I go for the dark and broody like Gideon, but something about Perry gripped me from his first entrance into the story. He’s hilarious, he’s sexy, and he’s wild. His relationship with Lilly adds more depth to his character than I ever expected, and by the end of TRATR, I was in love with him. I want my own Perry.

Jenn’s writing is solid throughout. She has a tendency to head-hop and gives us different perspectives from all sides of the story. However, there are frequent instances when I had no idea what was going on because there are no breaks. These changes are jolting, and a few times I got really confused. Also, there are A LOT of names, and titles and things to remember. I mention that solely because I’m lazy.

I would definitely recommend TRATR to fans of regency romances and to people who are new to that era of romance in general. Through Francine’s confusion and Perry’s unorthodox relationship with Lilly, the reader learns a lot about the courtship rules and the all-important propriety. ( )

Time travel, handsome lord of the realm, gorgeous clothing, this book has got everything.

Despite being rather racy in several spots I enjoyed this book a great deal. My fiance did as well as he got a great laugh out of my blushing recounts of what the characters were getting up to. It was scandalous!

There is a tiny part in the back of my head that compares any erotic type novel I read with Fifty Shades of Gray. This was 1000 times better. ( )

Time travel, handsome lord of the realm, gorgeous clothing, this book has got everything.

Despite being rather racy in several spots I enjoyed this book a great deal. My fiance did as well as he got a great laugh out of my blushing recounts of what the characters were getting up to. It was scandalous!

There is a tiny part in the back of my head that compares any erotic type novel I read with Fifty Shades of Gray. This was 1000 times better. ( )

Time travel, handsome lord of the realm, gorgeous clothing, this book has got everything.

Despite being rather racy in several spots I enjoyed this book a great deal. My fiance did as well as he got a great laugh out of my blushing recounts of what the characters were getting up to. It was scandalous!

There is a tiny part in the back of my head that compares any erotic type novel I read with Fifty Shades of Gray. This was 1000 times better. ( )

Argh. This is nearly a very good book. I don't like time travel romance, but this was well handled - I liked the enforced muteness, it kept her from making a lot of gaffes (she still made some, once she got her voice back, but by then she was settled in). And then I start thinking about it... and the logic holes show up. There's also the problem of the sex - which is nicely done, elegantly explicit, very hot if you like that style (which I do) - and does not fit the setting, nor really the characters. The "overwhelming lust" trope is really ridden into the ground. The historical setting is very solid and detailed (particularly the clothes) - but the characters are modern, aside from some lip service given to "propriety". It's used as a convenient obstacle, and conveniently cleared away when they want to - not at all the way the man depicted should have behaved. So that's the Recluse part of the story. Then the Rake part starts - and it would have been much, much better as a separate book. It's rather rushed, a quite inappropriate to the era situation, an equally inappropriate pairing...and on top of that, the copy editing seriously deteriorated as the book went on. Most of the Recluse was quite well done (except for "binds". There is no such noun as "binds" - either "bonds", or "bindings". Used 5-6 times in two chapters...argh!). Near the end, it went from good copy-editing to decent spell-checking - quite a few wrong-word errors. And by less than halfway through the Rake part, even that went by the board - I was stumbling over words that weren't words all over the place (ladiy for lady, for instance). And missing words in sentences, and one long scene repeated in its entirety... None of this _should_ be important, but it was bad enough that I was repeatedly thrown out of the story - and when the story is as weak as the Rake part, it doesn't need any more obstacles. The villain of the whole thing was amazingly pointless, too - soggily nasty, but no threat to anyone but a woman alone (and a terrible threat to same - I don't think Francine should have been quite as limp around him). He collapses every time a man confronts him, and then sneaks back into the game. Too weak to be interesting, too repetitive to be convincing...I'd rather have had the parents as the villains, rather than the simply amoral view they seem to have - they'd have been more interesting and probably more dangerous. And then a tiny snippet of Madeleine at the end - and I don't see that working, she has too much to absorb. Francine should have had too much too, but since her host thinks like a modern man (anachronistically), she doesn't have that wrenching change of viewpoint - she just asserts herself and it's HEA. The writing is good, the sex is hot, it needed more copy-editing and a lot more research - not into physical things, but into attitudes and behaviors. I don't think I'll reread. ( )