A jaded widow. A notorious rake. Childhood crushes reignite—but can love bloom amid betrayal, societal scorn, and a past that won’t stay buried?
Beauty and the Rake is the first book of the Endless Love series.
Overview
Lady Roxanne finds herself a relatively young widow. Her marriage to her much older husband wasn’t a happy one. Now with him gone, her stepson has taken over and only gives her a small townhouse in the bad part of town and only 100 pounds a year! Luckily, her brother has arrived and taken her to their childhood home to stay. Soon, she is reunited with her brother’s best friend, Graham Hawksbury.
Slowly, feelings begin to develop between the widow and the well-known rake. Both had harbored crushes for each other as children. Now that destiny has brought them together again, can they finally make it work? Even with their baggage getting in the way?
Positives
I know this author strives to have imperfect but strong female leads, and she nails it with Beauty and the Rake. Roxanne has been there and done that. Who cares what society thinks? She’s survived.
We also get to see some uncommon characteristics. I’ve never encountered any historical fiction that covers conditions like what we now call autism spectrum disorder. It’s good that we highlight the good and the bad in our history, or we never learn.
Negatives
I had an issue with the flow. There were times where the author was overly descriptive with mundane tasks, but during what should have been emotional conversations, the descriptions of body language and such were non-existent.
It doesn’t help that certain events don’t seem to support the plot and are just there to fill a narrative requirement. The ASD mention is what comes to mind. If you remove that entire event, it doesn’t affect the plot. It’s sad because it could have been expanded to play a bigger role in enhancing Roxanne’s character arc.
Recommendations
Unfortunately, Beauty and the Rake only gets two stars from me. I feel like the author was more focused on trying to set up the series plot than on Roxanne and Graham’s romance. There was so much potential, but it fell short for me.
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I received a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy(ARC) of the book for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own and reflect my genuine reading experience. Receiving the ARC did not influence my evaluation, and I was not compensated for this review.
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