TEST
I enjoyed the previous book in Charis Michaels’ Bachelor Lords of London series (The Virgin and the Viscount) and was impressed with the author’s ability to craft a strong story and create sympathetic characters. I was less impressed with the fact that the story went off the rails in the last twenty percent with a completely unnecessary – and inaccurate – twist which was there only to set up the next book. I wasn’t able to discuss that in my review, as it came late in the book and was thus a big spoiler, but as it is revealed at the beginning of One for the Rogue, I’m going to talk about it here.
Having suddenly come into a viscountcy that he doesn’t want and never expected to inherit, Beau Courtland has decided to ignore it and continue with his life as if nothing has happened. This life has included a lot of travel abroad, a lot of women and a lot of getting himself into scrapes, but Beau is the charming scapegrace younger brother – or he was until his brother Bryson, who had held the title Viscount Rainsleigh since the death of their irresponsible, debauched sire – discovered that the late viscount was not, in fact his father. An upstanding, fair minded man, Bryson was not prepared to continue to bear a title to which he was not, well, entitled, and abdicated it in favour of his brother, who is his father’s true son.
There is a massive problem with that and it’s why the ending of the last book made no sense and the premise of this one is just plain wrong. In English law at this time, if you were born in wedlock, you were legitimate, regardless of who provided the sperm. Anyone who reads historical romance on a regular basis – or who does the slightest bit of research – will be aware of this. The previous Viscount Rainsleigh was married to Bryson’s mother at the time of Bryson’s birth and publicly acknowledged him as his son – ergo, Bryson is legitimate in the eyes of the law, and there is no reason for him not to continue to hold his title. Yes, his actions are prompted by his personal code of honour, but that doesn’t trump the law. It would have taken an act of Parliament to strip him of the title, and for his desire for such a thing to have been taken seriously, Bryson would have had to have committed treason or done something equally terrible. I know this is fiction and there will be some who think I’m being needlessly pedantic. But as K.J. Charles recently pointed out in an excellent blog post, “Britain is a real country and our history actually happened” and ignoring that in order to suit a plotline is problematic, to say the least.
Okay, coming down off my soapbox, here’s the rest of the review.
Emmaline, the dowager Duchess of Ticking, is in dire straits. Married at nineteen to a man old enough to be her grandfather, she is, at twenty-three, a widow who has been left with nothing and is living off the allowance left her by her parents before they were tragically drowned some years earlier. The new duke has an eye to her younger brother’s fortune – Emma’s family was wealthy even though their money came from trade – and is having her watched and keeps trying to persuade her and her brother to move in with his large family where, it’s clear, she’ll be put to work as little more than a servant.
A glimmer of hope is offered her when Bryson Courtland casually mentions that his brother – the new Viscount Rainsleigh – needs someone to educate him in the ways of polite society. Having already come up with an idea that should help her and Teddy gain their freedom – which will involve transporting both themselves and a lot of saleable goods to New York – Emma thinks that taking the new viscount under her wing could persuade Mr. Courtland – who owns several shipping companies – to help her to bring her scheme to fruition.
The problem, of course, is that said new viscount has no intention of mingling with polite society. Although once he gets a good look at Emma, Beau is perfectly happy to form other sorts of intentions in relation to her, none of them polite. All that changes, though, as soon as he learns that while Emma is a widow, her marriage was never consummated. Virgins are strictly off-limits so he tries to distance himself from her. It goes without saying that he isn’t very successful.
The romance is fairly lukewarm, and while I did get a sense of Emma’s coming to a greater understanding of Beau and why he acts the way he does, I didn’t feel that Beau was much more than physically attracted to Emma, at least not until fairly late on in the story. In the second half of the book, the storyline surrounding the new Duke of Ticking’s attempts to get his hands on Emma’s brother’s money is more interesting – until Ms. Michaels once again makes use of another historically and, I believe, legally inaccurate scenario to bring that plotline to a close.
Emma is an engaging heroine and I liked the way she gets on with things without relying on others to do them for her. She’s strong, determined and clever – and I have to agree with Beau that he isn’t good enough for her. Beau has (or thinks he has) good reasons for not wanting anything to do with the peerage, and steadfastly refuses to use his title or to take responsibility for the lands and estates that his brother worked so hard to rebuild. An incident when he was nineteen gave him a distaste for the aristocracy, and admittedly what happened – Beau and a group of his friends unintentionally caused a distressing incident which the nobs covered up rather than admit to – wasn’t right. But rather than using his position as the brother of a viscount to do something about it, he just decided he was useless and that whatever he did was bound to fail so he didn’t bother to try. Quite honestly, I wanted to slap him, tell him not to be so selfish and to grow a pair!
You may ask why, given the massive inaccuracy upon which the story is based, I wanted to review this book at all. The answer is because I enjoyed The Virgin and the Viscount in spite of the problems that arose near the end and I wanted to see where Ms. Michaels was taking that part of the story. As I said at the outset, she’s a good writer and creates interesting characters, but the story in One for the Rogue wasn’t quite strong enough to hold my interest, and while I liked Emma, Beau is far too spineless and insipid to be the hero of a romance novel.
One for the Rogue sees Ms. Michaels’ Bachelor Lords trilogy limping to the finish line, rather than crossing it with arms outstretched in triumph. She’s a talented writer, so I will probably pick up her next book, but I’ll be doing so with fingers crossed she can resist the temptation to contort facts in order to fit her plotlines.
Grade: C
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 06/12/16
Publication Date: 12/2016
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
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Having just finished this book I agree with all you say in the review and the previous exchange of comments. If authors want to appeal to a British readership they need to be historically and legally accurate. Also as well as all the annoying inaccuracies and awful americanisms( stoop, sidewalk etc) the names are just completely non believable – the Earl of Laramie for goodness sake!! That was the final nail in the coffin for me as it transported me to the 1960s western series which is not what I want in a supposedly British based historical.
Hah! Yes, I thought that as well, but already had many errors to discuss in a lacklustre book, so had to decide which ones to leave out. The thing that annoys me over and over again though, is that it’s not difficult to look these things up. I remember having a discussion with an American friend many years ago and she made the point that “part of the problem is probably that they don’t realise it’s different in the UK.” And that makes sense to an extent; after all, over here, we’ve grown up on a diet of American TV, so we are well aware of the different words for pavement, Autumn, lift, tap etc, etc. But I find it very difficult to believe that an author – who I would hope is a reasonably well-informed person – and their editor(s) – about whom I’d hope the same thing – wouldn’t know about such differences and make the attempt to get them right. There are websites and communities devoted to the UK/US language divide, so it’s not hard to find out! Ignorance is one thing. It’s the willingness to just not bother that irks me.
“To me accuracy is very important no matter the genre.”
Yes and amen!
I don’t understand why the author (since she wanted to keep the brother alive) didn’t write that their parents weren’t legally married at the time of Bryson’s birth so that’s why Beau is now the viscount. Easily done, a little scandal, but still a legitimate reason for the change mid-stream.
I agree with K.J. Charles and also you are not being pedantic! It’s like those Naomi Novak dragon novels, she blatantly disregards history and writes crazy stuff about the Napoleonic Wars. To me accuracy is very important no matter the genre.
The Duchess of Ticking…..are you kidding me!! Sheesh, why Michaels couldn’t come up with something better than that shows how much she knows about Britain and writing historicals. Am I being too harsh?
Well, no, I don’t think you’re being too harsh. There is a great post by… I think it’s the late, great Jo Beverley in which she talks about selecting names for the English nobility and how to make them believable. With such fabulous resources – from fellow authors – available on the internet it amazes and irritates me that others don’t make use of them.
And I agree with you about how the author could – should – have handled that particular plot point differently. It’s not as if the legality of that particular situation doesn’t come up in countless other books. But then she goes and pulls yet another inaccurate stunt at the end of this book, which I couldn’t talk about in detail as it’s a spoiler, but which is based upon the fact that peers could only be tried by their peers (!) in the House of Lords – but the character on trial isn’t a peer. Plus, female characters are allowed to be present and to speak – which seems unlikely, although I’ll admit that might have been possible. But that whole plot point rang alarm bells.
Yes it was Jo Beverley, oh I miss her…..