This Rake of Mine

Nine years ago, one fateful kiss from Mad Jack Tremont ruined Miranda Mabberley in Society's eyes. Her parents packed her off to the country and refused to allow her home, and even that could not erase Jack's kiss from her memory - but he never came for her. So Miranda changed her name to Miss Porter and accepted a position as a decorum teacher at Miss Emery's finishing school.

Now Miranda is escorting three young ladies home for the summer. But the rather adventurous girls have a different plan in mind - matchmaking their Miss Porter with the rake Society banished - Lord John Tremont. A series of mishaps force the two into one another's company despite their wishes. Jack is desperate to have them leave lest they discover the secret show more activities being conducted on his estate, and lest he once again indulge his weakness for red-heads; Miranda wants nothing more than to leave before she succumbs once again to a rake's kiss.

This was a wonderful sequel to Something About Emmaline. The girls are hilarious - especially the world-travelling twins - and their matchmaking efforts are wholly transparent, but no less effective. The tension between the main characters sparkles with wit and simmers with heat. I loved them both and couldn't wait to see them together again. I can't wait for the twins' stories and that of Dash and Pippin. And now I feel the need to look into the Danvers series as well (as that's marginally connected).

A lovely novel. Highly recommended. show less

this rake of mine was a fun read. humor, a mild mystery, and scandal. how can you go wrong?
miranda is ruined (saved) by mad jack tremont when he mistakes her for an opera dancer one evening. she disappears from society and reemerges as a decorum teacher named jane porter at a school for girls, only to run into jack once more. unfortunately, jack doesn't recognize her. nor does he recognize her when 'mrs porter' and the three debutants she is chaperoning are stranded at his estate...

This was just an okay story that should have been better, considering how much I loved it's predecessor, Something About Emmaline. Here we find out what happens to Miranda Mabberly after wild Lord Jack Tremont kissed her passionately one night at the opera and scandalized all of London! This should have been a glorious entertaining story, but it lost me when it took a turn towards spies and pirates instead of centering on Jack and Miranda's promising storyline. The slow start didn't help either. Oh well, they all can't be winners. It wasn't bad, but I was hoping for something more than a school teacher spinster falls for rogue type storyline.

Miranda is a young girl caught in a kiss with an infamous rake who mistakes her for his mistress. She is only 16 and already ruined. We meet up with her ten years later as a decorum teacher in a girl's finishing school. She has been shunned by society, cut off by her family and has changed names. So, when she meets up with the rake that ruined her he doesn't recognize her underneath her plain clothes and dowdy chignon. The author weaves a good spy plot throughout this romance. The story is a bit slow at the beginning but towards the end you are caught up in whether or not Jack will ever realize that the woman he is dealing with is the young girl he ruined so long ago.

Great characters, great plot.

Miranda Mabberly, on her way to a boring marriage, is stopped and kissed by Lord Jack Tremont, and then caught in the act. Her betrothal is dissolved and she's packed off to the country, finding refuge teaching at a girls' school under an assumed name.

Lord Jack Tremont is sent to the school to escort his niece home, he stumbles in Miranda again. Three conniving but well-meaning schoolgirls advance the plot.

Lots of suspense, intrigue, and the usual happy ending.

I prefer my regency romances to be more based in London and with the surrounding ‘Ton’. This wasn’t and I didn’t love the espionage angle either. But the writing isn’t bad.

I enjoyed the aspects of intrigue in this story (the rake is an important member of a spy network for England), but for me, it seemed to get off to a slow start.