Victor Book

I love this book and its predecessor so much that I actually held off reading this one until came out so I could enjoy a double-whammy, so-to-speak.

The reasons why I liked this one are pretty similar to the reasons why I liked Sinjin's story.

It's so refreshing to have rakes that are really naughty. These three gorgeous specimens of manhood have done some pretty interesting stuff sexually, which we, luckily, get to see little vignettes of. It really annoys me that in HRs every man is considered a rake, even if all he's done is lost his cherry before marriage or kept a mistress. I mean, check out the number of books with the word "rake" in the title! When most aristocratic marriages were arranged for money or prestige, I would be stunned if the majority didn't enjoy a bit-on-the-side, so it's nice to see that this series reflects more-or-less what I would envision a large number of very wealthy, very bored aristocrats actually would get up to.

I also love the way secondary characters are more rounded than the purely one-dimensional individuals you sometimes see, although they still have that slightly cartoonish thing going, which I actually quite enjoy in HRs.

I also actually like how these books, whilst entertainingly titillating reads, do actually include some less savory aspects of life in this era. This one included what happened in marriages in which the husband was homosexual, after all, aristocratic homosexuals did marry for the same reasons heterosexual aristocrats married (money, prestige, children). In this particular marriage, the husband is castigated not for his homosexuality but for the cruelty he inflicted on his wife, which is a rather 21st century attitude, but it's nice to see such a subject included nonetheless.

So, I loved the well-endowed hero, and I loved the repressed, sad and rather lonely heroine, and I loved the whole age difference thing.

There were some things which I didn't like so much, though.

The writing quality diminished slightly after the halfway point, and this annoyed me, since it had such a great plot, such fabulous characters and great atmosphere. It all felt rather hurried, like the author couldn't wait to get on with the Extremely Naughty Rory's story (OK, who can blame her, but still). There was too much of the he-said-she-said style of writing, which I find incredibly boring, and also one character was introduced as Lady SomethingOrOther and the next she metamorphosed into "Betsy" with no warning.

There were also some real clangers that jarred with me: the heroine would never, never be told where the hero's bedroom was in his parents house, when she makes the introductory visit, not in a million years, and she would certainly not be shown it. Now misbehavior at country houses is one thing, with sneaking around the corridors for illicit sex, as long as certain rules were obeyed, but the heroine would not be shown his room, and certainly not by the hero's mother. After all, this would be one of the jobs of the maid or valet - to know who would be sleeping in which room, to make it all much easier for their employers. Also, Sinjin's mother would not whoop for joy at the prospect of a baby conceived out of wedlock (not telling you who's baby). She might have been privately very happy (after all, this sort of thing has always gone on), but I really struggle to believe that she would have publicly shown how happy she was.

So, it would have been 5 stars, but for the sloppiness halfway through and some of the out-of-period stuff.