Book Review - Sarah MacLean's Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: March 30th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 397 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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Lady Calpurnia Hartwell was bound for spinster seating from her very first season. Sure she had the dowry. But that only attracted a certain type of gentlemen. And besides saddling her with an absurdly Shakespearean name her parents also made her believe in love matches. Oh, to be loved. Like her sister is. It's been a decade since Callie's first season an her sister has made a love match before the season is even underway. Callie should be happy. Instead she is sad and soon to be drunk. She's been on the shelf for so long even her brother is encouraging her to not be such a stickler for the rules of society. Therefore Callie does what comes naturally to her, she makes a list. Lists are sensible. Lists are good. Lists are what women on the shelf make when they've reached the end of their rope. She lists nine things that would shock polite society. Sure, some of them might easily ruin her, but isn't it time to live a little? Isn't it time to shoot a gun, attend a duel, dance every dance, and be passionately kissed. She decides that she will tackle the kiss first. Only her inebriated mind could make her believe this is a good idea. At a ball during her first season she fell irrevocably in love with the Marquess of Ralston, Gabriel St. John. He spent a few minutes talking to her before moving on to an assignation in a hedge maze. Those few minutes were enough for her to fall in love with a man who was already making a name for himself as a rake. Seeing him and his paramour for the first time in life Callie was jealous of another person. Therefore if she's to experience her first kiss she wants it to be him. It doesn't matter if it will ruin her for all others because she is sure there will never be any others. She is rather scandalized when she is taken to his bedroom. But she has come this far, she will not turn back. When Ralston realizes that it is not his current mistress but Lady Calpurnia Hartwell who has entered his room he decides to take the upper hand. He will give her the kiss she desires but she in turn must help his sister, an illegitimate Italian, come out in society. Callie's approval will give Juliana legitimacy. Callie agrees. But that kiss changes everything. For both of them.
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake is based on the clever conceit that Callie has written a list of nine things that she wishes to do were propriety not an issue. The conceit is clever because the list acts as an outline. Callie's HEA cannot happen until everything is completed, including a duel. So it's a nice way to pace out the narrative. Plus they don't happen in a specific order so it's a little like roulette, which rule will she break next? Though the problem with Callie's list is that literally every time she draws a line through an item she's drugged by Ralston's kisses. I mean, this is a romance so you expect the sexy time, but does the sexy time have to be so repetitive? Each item means that the sexy time has arrived, and each time it's basically the same with them going a little further until Callie is well and thoroughly compromised. The drugging kisses, the laving of some part of her anatomy with word usage that reminds me more of a cat, the nipple play, all of which seems meant to prove that Ralston is really into satisfying his partner, which means he can't be entirely a reprobate right? I'm just saying that they needed a little variety in their sex life... At least they were both very enthusiastic I guess. But the sexy time for me isn't what this book is about, it's about Callie coming into her own. Like Callie I feel like I have spent so much of my life being "their" version of me that I sometimes don't know who I really am. And by "their" I mean the whole world at large, for Callie it's the ton, for me it's largely family. And don't get me started on when people talk to you with "why are you so..." Maybe I wasn't that way until you thrust your expectations onto me? Maybe I should make a list? What also hit unexpectedly hard was Callie talking about being put on the shelf. How she was so high up there and so alone. It wasn't just the fact lack of coupledom that made this hit the mark but Covid. We have all collectively been on the shelf for two years. We aren't going to public houses or fencing clubs of heaths for duels, we're home on a high shelf hiding out from the rest of the world. I think when this pandemic is over we all need to take a leaf out of Callie's book and make ourselves a list and find out who we really are. Rake an added bonus.
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