A Night with a Rogue by Julie Anne LongMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Beauty and the Spy 5 stars
All the way there she'd rehearsed in her head what she might say to him, how she would ask it, what she might do if his answers broke her heart. But then he turned suddenly and saw her. And his face, unguarded, told her everything she needed to know, and questions were no longer necessary.
"Oh, Kit. It's all right," she said softly. "I love you, too."
He stared at her, caught. And then he laughed a short laugh, which was no doubt meant to sound incredulous or devil-may-care, but which failed miserably.
Beauty and the Spy starts off with a reach out and grab you prologue where James Makespeace arrives in the middle of the night to Anna Holt's cottage in Gorringe. He warns her that his friend, her lover and the father of their three daughters, Richard Lockwood, has been murdered and she's been framed for it. With only seconds to spare, the decision is made for Anna to disappear and have James take her three daughters into hiding until everything can be figured out. Chapter one then brings us to seventeen years later.
This is a reissue, with the first two books in the series bound together in this edition. I read this series over ten years ago and I was happy to see that the first book still holds up as one of my favorite stories. The plot of why and who could be involved with Richard's murder takes over a lot of the beginning, the reader is let into the details before the characters, which I think works perfectly as there is a lot to keep track of. Thaddeus Morley is a come up from the slums who is a dirty politician and the known villain, he also ties together our heroine Susannah and Kit. Susannah is the youngest daughter of Richard and Anna and has little to no memory of her true parentage, she thinks James, the man who raised her is her father. After James is killed, she winds up penniless and living with her Aunt, who eventually reveals that James wasn't her real father. Kit is an ex-solider, now spy who is drowning in boredom in London. His father threatens to send him to Egypt if he can't finish a nature folio project in Barnstable. The city Susannah's aunt just happens to live in.
The folio project was a little of a stretch to get these two together but you'll be impressed with how Long connects all the other characters and dots involved in the plot. Morley, the man who destroyed Susannah's family, also happens to be the man who took away Kit's childhood love, Caroline, and caused a shift in Kit's life. It's a lot of clues and journey for Kit and Susannah and you'll want all the secondary characters to get stories of their own. Seriously, where is John Carr's story?!?
The plot has depth and breadth and I like how it wasn't just created for this first book but will carry over and serve to really connect the next two in the series. I also loved the patience and care Long took with not only the plot but the characters and their relationships. Susannah and Kit get to know one another and it was a beautiful relationship to watch grow. They both have a bit of devil-may-care to them and I loved their playfulness with each other; I felt the emotion between them. If you have a short attention span and like how characters jump into bed right away, this wouldn't be for you but if you're ready to sit and sink into not only a story but a series, the plot and quiet love between Susannah and Kit is a must read.
Ways to Be Wicked 2 stars
She did not want to be found until she'd learn what she'd come to learn.
The second book in the trilogy, Ways to be Wicked follows the sister Sylvie. We meet her as she's sneaking away to travel to England from France because of a letter she found from a Lady Susannah Whitelaw claiming to be her sister. Like Susannah, Sylvie doesn't have much memory of her mother and sisters and the woman that took her in, a former dancer with the famous Daisy, has been burning the letters from Susannah, thinking Sylvie is still in trouble. When Sylvie gets to England, she lands in the lap of Tom Shaughnessy, the dance hall owner we meet in the first, and also gets robbed by highwaymen. There's an instant something between her and Tom and he offers the name of his dance hall if she needs refuge. Which is what she ends up needing after going to Lady Susannah's home and discovering that not only have Susannah and her husband traveled to France but the butler doesn't believe her story of being Susannah's sister. They have been inundated with impostors after the story of Susannah and her sisters has hit the papers. Sylvie is left with only one place to go, Tom's.
The story then becomes a little disjointed as multiple threads are happening, Sylvie a ballerina struggling to stuff her pride to be a dance hall girl, the wavering attraction between her and Tom, Tom's discovery of a child, Tom trying to get funding for a new project, The General and Daisy, and Susannah's lover Etienne, who may have followed her to England. The first had a lot of threads also, but here, they never gelled together right for me and Tom and Sylvie never got the focus required for me to feel the emotions between them. The connecting thread from the first is also not really integrated until the end when Kit and Susannah come into the picture.
This second book didn't have the heat and emotions I delighted in from the first and Sylvie and Tom never got the focus I would have liked. The dance hall setting was at least a different place to visit as none of the main characters were aristocrats.
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