The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle

by Elizabeth Beacon

Mills & Boon Historical/Regency

Genres: Romance, Historical, Regency, Historical Romance

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

ELIZABETH BEACON lives in the beautiful English West Country, and is finally putting her insatiable curiosity about the past to good use. Over the years Elizabeth has worked in her family’s horticultural business, become a mature student, qualified as an English teacher, worked as a secretary and, briefly, tried to be a civil servant. She is now happily ensconced behind her computer, when not trying to exhaust her bouncy rescue dog with as many walks as the Inexhaustible Lurcher can finagle. Elizabeth can’t bring herself to call researching the wonderfully diverse, scandalous Regency period and creating charismatic heroes and feisty heroines work, and she is waiting for someone to find out how much fun she is having and tell her to stop it.

Reviews

[Ianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is mom porn if ever i read it. also this honestly would’ve been rated higher if Charles hadn’t been TEN YEARS OLDER THAN HER. he talks at length about how he wanted to marry and then have sex with Roxanne when she was 14 💀 ew. redeemed by the fact that that didn’t happen but i still don’t like it.

[Denise Bonham · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely read .
Nice setting with a lively feisty heroine.
Fabulous

[Mnms · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this one was hard to rate. it's one of my favourite topics (long-time love and friendship) but it wasn't very well written. parts of the story is very sweet and the writing seem to improve as the story unfolds, but it's not very original. The characters are strong but tend to repeat themselves and be rather silly. 

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this story to be endlessly frustrating. I nearly stopped several times.
First of all, I found both characters to have personalities I couldn't quite grasp. Roxanne's moods frequently changed, but I think she was mostly bitter because Charles had somehow, for some reason, spurned her in the past and because her brother sold the family estate to Charles without informing Roxanne about it first. Likewise, I also found that the writing style constantly changed and was inconsistent. It was if there are actually two different authors writing the book. One uses a a tone similar to that of Jane Austin and the other author, especially for the more sexual scenes, is more contemporary in the prose.
Roxanne was constantly sparring with with Charles. Yet, he keeps chasing after her. I constantly wondered how soon he would give up the chase.

[Jean Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had what could have been a good plot. The character painted for the girl was good but, the character was not kept too, she'd kept changing into a stupid /simpering miss and the crying scene in the middle was totally out of character. . The chaperone was no friend at all and should have been shot. The only good character was Te grandmother. The hero was detestable from start to finish, by the middle of the book I was skim reading the pages and got to the point where I just wanted to kill the hero. The thought that he would get the girl was so repugnant. That I decided it would be a waste of time to read any more. A real disappointment for what could have been a good book.

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more perhaps than the star rating I have given it. My only criticism is that there isn't quite as much conflict as there needs to be. Right at the end we do find out a reason for the hero's reluctance to love and wed the heroine, but there's not enough preparation for the explanation and I'm not quite sure about her motivation in changing her mind about him. Good but not excellent.

[Tasneem · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this an okay book. I tried to like the heroine and although she wasn't too bad, I found her a bit dim and not too much to my liking. She had Charles so much in love with her, and still she wasn't happy because he wasn't able to say the words. Sometimes words aren't as important as actions and although the ending was fairly nice, it was a bit too twee.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing spectacular...though I liked the story.