Monday, March 21, 2016

New Review: Barbara Monajem’s THE RAKE’S IRISH LADY – Unusual Regency where the villain is an Irishman fighting for Ireland’s independence

This is a slightly offbeat tale, cleverly told. Set in 1804, it’s the story of Bridget O’Shaughnessy Black, a widow and a half Irish lady raised in England who considers herself English, and Collin Warren, a supposed rake with whom she had a one-night affair six years ago. The one night stand, which was her idea, produced a daughter, 5-year old Sophie.

Bridget comes to London to try and get Collin to acknowledge the child to avoid the marriage being forced on her by her former love, Martin Fallow, an Irishman who is telling everyone they know Sophie is his so Bridget will marry him.

Collin has no idea if the child is his but ultimately decides Sophie looks like his dead sister so he acknowledges her as his own. Sophie is a great character with smart aleck retorts that seem much older than a 5-year old but which I enjoyed.

It was very late in the game when Collin and Bridget developed an attraction for each other. At first Collin felt he owed it to her to take care of the child; then he began wanting to care of the child’s mother as well. But when he discovers her talking to her old flame, Martin, about guns he is smuggling to the Irish for their fight for independence, Collin drops her like a hot rock. It seemed a bit over the top to me. Besides, Bridget identifies more with the English than the Irish. At this point, I had a lot of sympathy for Martin.

So what we have here is an offbeat, well-written, “sort of Regency” story with a hero who isn’t much of a rake who suffers from an incident in his past and a heroine who acts very 21st century. There are references to the first story in the series (To Kiss a Rake) so you might want to read that one first so you know who is who.

Buy on Amazon.

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