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Rose Lerner casually mentioned in one of my comms that she loved this book because it featured one of her favorite kinds of heroes: the secret people-pleaser. That was an interesting hook for me.
Overwhelmingly, this is an extremely well-executed book. It takes a bunch of tropes and tips them just far enough to the side that people who love the trope get what they want, but there's also something fresh about the approach.
Xavier, our male protag, is an earl who is heavily invested in his reputation as a rake. One of my nitpicks about this book is that it's not clear to me as a reader WHY he's so invested in this reputation, which he does not seem to, you know, LIKE, until pretty late in the book. While his reasoning makes total sense once it's revealed, it would help a lot to know that much earlier in the book, because I spent a lot of the book being bumfuzzled as to why he wasn't just like "eh, fuck it, this was a good run, moving on."
Anyhoodle. Part of that rep is that he always wins his wagers, particularly against his cousin, a Marquess, so higher ranked. But his cousin is amongst the "impoverished" nobility and Xavier is decidedly not. Xavier takes a bet from Cousin Marquess (CM), that he cannot invite a respectable maiden of the nobility to his infamous two week Christmas party and have her stay. Xavier doesn't love this bet, because it risks someone else's reputation, and that's not the way he plays, but he also can't see his way out of it, so he agrees. CM names the woman who just HAPPENS to be Louisa Oliver, who thinks Xavier caused the scandal that befell her the season before to arise. (He didn't, but he knows she thinks he did.)
That scandal is that Louisa's fiance jilted her for Louisa's sister. Louisa doesn't hold a grudge, she's living with her sister and brother-in-law, but she's also in an unenviable position, having been jilted, the object of a scandal, and being a bluestocking, not someone people gravitate toward. She accepts Xavier's invite mostly on the theory of "look, I could use a little new in my life." She goes with her aunt, a Countess who Knows What Is Going On and Is Not To Be Fucked With, Young Men. (The Countess is my fave, kay?)
Louisa, as a general rule, is good at observing, at seeing what other people don't. Which is why she figures out fairly quickly that Xavier is mostly BS. And Xavier, who has never really been seen before, finds that he likes being seen.
The slow build between these two is highly enjoyable. A lot of talking about books and ciphers and, wait for it, actual feelings, the way adults should.
CM is the Big Bad here, and he's an unnerving Big Bad. Almost TOO much so for a histrom. Because his motivation is 100% Entitled White Male who feels he has Not Gotten What He Deserves, and he actively threatens to rape Louisa in order to get what he wants in this case, does, at two different points, attempt to sexually assault her. He doesn't get far either time, but his menace is something too familiar to feel any kind of remove from. He's honestly terrifying in a way very few romance villains are.
They do declaw him, although, I somewhat question the level to which they manage and if they haven't just sent him away to stew until he can come up with another plan.
That said, I did find the ending to be spot-on, as it circles back to exactly why Xavier has hidden behind this persona the whole time, and how, in being with Louisa, he gets exactly what he needs to let that go.
Overwhelmingly, this is an extremely well-executed book. It takes a bunch of tropes and tips them just far enough to the side that people who love the trope get what they want, but there's also something fresh about the approach.
Xavier, our male protag, is an earl who is heavily invested in his reputation as a rake. One of my nitpicks about this book is that it's not clear to me as a reader WHY he's so invested in this reputation, which he does not seem to, you know, LIKE, until pretty late in the book. While his reasoning makes total sense once it's revealed, it would help a lot to know that much earlier in the book, because I spent a lot of the book being bumfuzzled as to why he wasn't just like "eh, fuck it, this was a good run, moving on."
Anyhoodle. Part of that rep is that he always wins his wagers, particularly against his cousin, a Marquess, so higher ranked. But his cousin is amongst the "impoverished" nobility and Xavier is decidedly not. Xavier takes a bet from Cousin Marquess (CM), that he cannot invite a respectable maiden of the nobility to his infamous two week Christmas party and have her stay. Xavier doesn't love this bet, because it risks someone else's reputation, and that's not the way he plays, but he also can't see his way out of it, so he agrees. CM names the woman who just HAPPENS to be Louisa Oliver, who thinks Xavier caused the scandal that befell her the season before to arise. (He didn't, but he knows she thinks he did.)
That scandal is that Louisa's fiance jilted her for Louisa's sister. Louisa doesn't hold a grudge, she's living with her sister and brother-in-law, but she's also in an unenviable position, having been jilted, the object of a scandal, and being a bluestocking, not someone people gravitate toward. She accepts Xavier's invite mostly on the theory of "look, I could use a little new in my life." She goes with her aunt, a Countess who Knows What Is Going On and Is Not To Be Fucked With, Young Men. (The Countess is my fave, kay?)
Louisa, as a general rule, is good at observing, at seeing what other people don't. Which is why she figures out fairly quickly that Xavier is mostly BS. And Xavier, who has never really been seen before, finds that he likes being seen.
The slow build between these two is highly enjoyable. A lot of talking about books and ciphers and, wait for it, actual feelings, the way adults should.
CM is the Big Bad here, and he's an unnerving Big Bad. Almost TOO much so for a histrom. Because his motivation is 100% Entitled White Male who feels he has Not Gotten What He Deserves, and he actively threatens to rape Louisa in order to get what he wants in this case, does, at two different points, attempt to sexually assault her. He doesn't get far either time, but his menace is something too familiar to feel any kind of remove from. He's honestly terrifying in a way very few romance villains are.
They do declaw him, although, I somewhat question the level to which they manage and if they haven't just sent him away to stew until he can come up with another plan.
That said, I did find the ending to be spot-on, as it circles back to exactly why Xavier has hidden behind this persona the whole time, and how, in being with Louisa, he gets exactly what he needs to let that go.
