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Vivienne Lorret’s The Rogue to Ruin is the last in her Adventures in Matchmaking trilogy, but doesn’t suffer too much from sequelitis and can be read without any knowledge of the previous books. It focuses on the owner of a matrimonial agency and her rivalry/romance with the owner of a gaming hell across the road.
Ainsley Bourne remains unmarried although her two younger sisters have found wedded bliss. This is partly because Ainsley is determined to make a success of the Bourne Matrimonial Agency, rather than allowing people to think that she and her sisters only started the business to find men for themselves. And it’s partly because Ainsley once hoped to marry a man who turned out to be manipulative and cruel, so she has no intention of letting herself be hurt again.
So Ainsley is not predisposed to think well of her across-the-road neighbor, Reed Sterling. For one thing, he’s a former prizefighter, and her ex was also into pugilism. For another, Reed owns a gaming hell whose patrons litter the street with rubbish, and for another, well, he makes her feel uncomfortable in the strangest ways. Meanwhile, Reed looks down on the upper class in general so he thinks Ainsley is a pampered miss playing at businesswoman, though he also notices how nice she smells.
The two of them bicker every chance they get, so Ainsley decides to drive the gaming hell out of business. I perked up because this made a change from him calling her “highness” and making suggestive remarks while she sputters or bristles. Unfortunately Ainsley doesn’t have much in the way of resources, plus she must safeguard her reputation. So what she can do is limited, and Reed stymies her efforts easily. Imagine a corgi yapping at a Great Dane and you’ll have an idea how one-sided their fights are.
But the story takes an interesting turn after Ainsley’s ex tracks her down, and to scare him off, she claims she’s going to marry Reed. Reed overhears this, and it brings out the best in him, since despite his leaping to conclusions about Ainsley, he won’t allow anyone to abuse her. Ainsley also becomes more fun to read about, and I was riveted during the long, tense scene where her ex stalks her, especially since Ainsley is definitely not an action heroine who’s going to karate-chop the knife out of his hand. So she uses her intelligence against him instead.
The sex scenes are detailed, emotional and hot, but while I enjoyed them, I didn’t find it plausible that the evil ex conveniently stepped off stage for them. Then Reed and Ainsley are driven apart again by Reed’s failure to communicate something and by Ainsley getting prickly over it, so the evil ex takes this as his cue to reappear. I kept reading and was never bored, but the book definitely fell short of keeper status here. And the baby-logue was so gloriously blissful I was surprised the pages didn’t emit a cascade of light while a choir burst into song.
On the plus side, the writing is excellent, with plenty of vivid description and figures of speech. However, for readers who do not want to encounter animal abuse, there is a cat in the story, and while I won’t give spoilers, I don’t think what happens to the cat is very well handled by either the characters or the author.
The Rogue to Ruin is a book with ups and down, but on the whole, there were more ups, so I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy enemies-to-lovers and marriage-of-convenience stories. Despite its flaws, this was an easy, engaging read, and I look forward to trying more romances by this author.
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Grade: B
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 09/01/20
Publication Date: 07/2019
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.
I'm Marian, originally from Sri Lanka but grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in Georgia and Texas, ended up in Toronto. When I'm not at my job as a medical laboratory technologist, I read, write, do calligraphy, and grow vegetables in the back yard.
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I’m glad that this seems to be a step up from the last book; It sounds different from the slapstick comedy of the last one, at least, but jeeze,animal abuse, author?
I didn’t want to put this in the review because it’s a big spoiler, but I think I should clarify. So.
SPOILER FOR ANIMAL ABUSE
While the evil ex is hunting through the heroine’s house for her, he finds the hero’s cat. He has a knife. The next scene shows the hero discovering a pool of blood on the floor, and the cat is nowhere to be found. The hero and heroine get out of there, with the implication that the cat is dead. Then there are some chapters where they hide out and have sex, but when they return to her house, they discover the cat was only injured, not killed, and someone has found the cat and is taking care of it.
I didn’t like this because I don’t appreciate a “gotcha! you thought the cat was dead but it’s going to be fine!” And I don’t recall the characters grieving for the cat either. The baby-logue shows the cat has fully recovered, but I felt it was a bit of a cheap twist to make me think the cat had been gruesomely killed, only to backtrack on this.
Yeeps, that’s not the best choice either indeed.
Thanks for the warning about the cat. That makes me think twice about reading this story. Also the villain popping in and out too conveniently. (Don’t feel too sorry for me though. My TBR list is quite big enough, thank you, and never seems to stop growing.)
In regard to the cover, it’s intense all right, but I’m wondering about the state of her dress. Is there a huge split up the side for it to be able to hang off of her body like that?
That dress’s skirt could double as a tent, couldn’t it? The split must be how people get in and out.
But the dresses I like least are the ones with the super-low necklines that stop just short of a wardrobe malfunction.