Scandal in Dangerous Hero Addict Support Group

Dec 26, 2010 Ruth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-romance, regency-victorian, non-classical-beauty-heroine, all-time-favorites, bad-boy-badass-s-o-b-rake-hero

I really loved this book.

It's not a galloping romp through Regency London, but a study of the heartache, betrayal, cynicism and coldness left behind a rake's endless pursuit of pleasure. The plot is actually quite simple, but the writing, oh, the writing, is just so superb, that I could probably do a beautiful precis of the story and you would still be stunned by the book if you read it.

It has strains of Persuasion, but is more of a step-by-step, breath-by-breath study of two people, their inter I really loved this book.

It's not a galloping romp through Regency London, but a study of the heartache, betrayal, cynicism and coldness left behind a rake's endless pursuit of pleasure. The plot is actually quite simple, but the writing, oh, the writing, is just so superb, that I could probably do a beautiful precis of the story and you would still be stunned by the book if you read it.

It has strains of Persuasion, but is more of a step-by-step, breath-by-breath study of two people, their interactions, their emotions and their thoughts. The secondary characters and the sub-plots are important, but just enough detail is given to hint at underlying themes, without wasting words on them. The only truly horrible character does not actually appear really at all.

But most of all, you get a wonderful feeling of intimacy, as though you are really there in the room watching these people move around and interact with each other. Other authors sometimes try to give you the feeling of being in the moment with descriptions of clothes or hair styles, but the writing in this story is more subtle. Your senses are engaged by passages mentioning the sound of a footman's boots as he gets down from the coach, and the sound of his breath as he opens the door, the feeling of coolness and marble in entrance halls. Scenes are set as "rooms", not the slightly two-dimensional way most books use as though you are watching actors facing center-front in a theater, taking turns to speak. No, this book includes the backs of heads (yes, you can recognize people that way).

It also includes really painful personal tragedies. In HRs, you get kinda use to a dress getting ripped being staged as leading to Ruination and Depravity, but life was pretty horrible before modern medicine. People did die, and life, particularly for women, could be tenuous if they were left in an awful marriage or were not adequately provided for in wills.

I did have one mini-gripe about 75% of the way through. I just wanted the heroine to really understand that people CAN change and to really just get on with her life, but even then, her reluctance felt totally natural to me.

Oh, and yes, there aren't many steamy bits in this book, but Good Lord! what bits are there, are smokin' hot. And I mean hot.

So, I loved it, and thanks to Tammy for suggesting it. It has such a generic title, and standard HR cover, that I would never have picked it out in a million years, but I'm so glad I did. ...more

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