Review: Notorious

Notorious by Minerva Spencer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

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. 

Could there be anything more pitiful than a homely wallflower yearning for an arresting, attractive Corinthian? 

The first in the Rebels of the Ton series, Notorious pairs together Drusilla Clare, an heiress but the daughter of a tradesman and Gabriel Marlington, the son of an Englishwoman and the late sultan of Oran. Some of the names in the story may appear familiar, Gabriel's mother and stepfather starred in a previous series (Outcasts – Dangerous). I have not read that book and, in the beginning, I wondered if I missed some of Gabriel's background that was given in that book. We eventually get more of Gabriel's background regarding his family in Oran and what transpired there but it is more towards the end of the story and I felt placing it thus, gave the story some disjointed and pacing problems. 

She behaved as though he were a savage libertine with no self-restraint. Restraint was probably her middle name---or perhaps it was Censorious. 

I liked the beginning set-up with Drusilla's unrequited love for her friend Eva's stepbrother, Gabriel, and then they're forced marriage to save Drusilla's reputation. However, Drusilla is determined to keep her love for Gabriel a secret from him because she doesn't think there is anyway he could ever feel that way for her, in doing so, she is very caustic and quick to shut him out. They started off with some biting back and forth that felt like it could have some smoldering heat underneath but for the majority of the book, it kept getting dampened instead of building to flames. In the middle, Gabriel did reach out a couple times and try to build a friendship in their marriage but, even though Drusilla beat herself up over it right after, Drusilla kept being biting towards him. It is not until the latter half that we get her warming up and the author writes most of the thawing in very open door sex scenes. 

But she could not tell him what she truly feared: that she would be married to a man she loved who would never love her. The driving force to get these two together is a man named Lord Godric Visel, he hates Gabriel for some reason and creates the scene that has Gabriel offering for Drusilla's hand and a duel. After that scene, Visel hovers more on the edges, a murky danger for Gabriel and Drusilla but that storyline never truly develops as we get no reason for Visel's hate other than he might be “mad”. I would let this go more as the author alludes to racism being a possible reason but Visel looks to be lined up as the hero in the next in the series, and if that was his reason, I can't imagine readers enjoying his story. Visel also has a cousin that is friends with Drusilla that has some shady doings going on, works to help fill out the slight mystery and danger plot but I almost could have done with more scenes of Gabriel and Drusilla's growing friendship to romance more. 

I found the way some of the story's plot threads and reveals of characters, Gabriel's past in Oran revealed more towards the end, helped to create some pacing issues; the middle and latter half dragged for me. Drusilla stayed caustic towards Gabriel for too long and their bedroom antics didn't make-up for an emotional connection I was missing. I'm curiously interested in Gabriel's friend Thomas Byer but, as I said, the next in the series seems to pair Gabriel's stepsister Eva with the villain of this story, Visel, which to the way he was portrayed here, I have questions.

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