Review: The Rebel and the Rake

The Rebel and the Rake by Emily Sullivan
My rating: 2 of 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. 

With the help of her bestfriend Lady Georgiana Arlington, Miss Sylvia Sparrow has secured the position of lady's companion with Georgiana's aunt by marriage. Georgiana doesn't know all of Sylvia's secrets and when Sylvia is blackmailed, she lives in fear that her past actions could come to light and hurt not only her but Georgiana. 

The Honorable Rafe Davies has been playing the role of rake for the last couple years, which has worked to keep people from looking too closely to what his true actions are but he's lately been feeling the strain of no-one knowing who he truly is. When his older half-brother sends him to Castle Blackwood to doing a little spying for the current owner, John Wardale, Rafe knows he's not being given the full story but thinks the means will justify the ends. 

Some secrets she needed to keep safe. 

The Rebel and the Rake is second in the League of Scoundrels series and I had no problem jumping into the series here; there was only a brief mention of the hero from the first. The beginning 10-15% of this had me very excited as Rafe started to remind me of the hero from Bridal Favors by Connie Brockway, along with the general tone. In public, Rafe acts the never-do-well younger son of an Earl but he really works as a spy for the Crown. He's currently at Castle Blackwood to root out a blackmailer for the owner John as a favor to his older brother. We get a little bit of backstory on Rafe being shunned by his half-siblings because they didn't feel their father mourned their mother enough before he married Rafe's mother, an actress, no less. The situation and what John and his brother are telling him isn't quite adding up to Rafe but there's alluding that he's going along with it because he craves validation from his older half-brother. I tried to go along with that but throughout most the story, it made it feel more like Rafe may have the title of spy but none of the supporting thinking/characteristics of one (his friend Captain Harris did more work and felt more like a spy/detective than Rafe). 

The trouble was he hadn't been acting like the Honorable Rafe Davies, shallow yet charismatic bon vivant. Just himself. And for a moment she had seen it. 

Seen him. 

While I liked the very beginning set-up of this one, I could see other readers getting a little bored with the slower set-up, secondary characters get more buildups and the start of Rafe and Sylvia's (I just have to say I love that name, Sylvia Sparrow) relationship was all about the subtle heat in the glances. I loved it, Sylvia's shy flushing as awareness grows and it all was giving me those building blocks, development, that make romances fulfilling for me but I do agree it could have been snappier. However, around 30-60% the whole plot of Rafe being a spy, working for Wardale, and Sylvia being blackmailed seems to get mostly forgotten and all that set-up, especially the Rafe at odds with Sylvia tension, never comes to fruition. They share a kiss around 30% and Sylvia reveals a majority of her secrets to Rafe at the halfway point but there wasn't any continuing growth in their romance to move beyond insta for me and the story started to drag for me. 

“I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.” He let out a surprised laugh and pulled a hand through his hair, disturbing the usually perfect strands. 

Rafe didn't turn out to be quite what I was looking for, he spent most of the story in existential crisis that no one truly knew him because of the nature of his job. Sylvia had great interesting components to her character, ones that gave a feeling to the Victorian time period this was set in but besides being listed out, we never really get a feel for her and I ended up feeling like any character could have been dropped into her role, instead of feeling like the story was coming from Sylvia. I had the same problem with their first sexual scene, it felt like the author had the scene in their mind and was just waiting to plop it somewhere, as opposed as feeling like the story/characters naturally lead it to that moment. I lost a lot of the emotion because of feeling this way, along with the insta never getting those development relationship blocks I like. There was a later sex scene that I thought had some nice heat to it but I was still missing the emotional connection along with physical. 

Rafe took her hand by the wrist, brought it to his mouth, then gently kissed her fingertips. All while never breaking his gaze. 

Around 70-80% the spying and blackmail plot gets wrapped up and Sylvia kind of has an almost berating speech towards Rafe that felt pretty harsh (it has to do with the seemingly disconnect of their ideals) but even at that point, even though I thought it came off harsh, I went along with it because, even in the way later half, it didn't feel like they really knew each other at this point. It was almost an affirmation to their instalust and how when Sylvia found out who Rafe was, she didn't like him, which at this point of the story, I'm looking for more closeness between my couple. This, of course, ends in a HEA but, for me personally, it felt more like a happily for now, especially when Rafe's declaration involved the line “Let me show you who I can be.” It's just a personal preference that I want that development to be done and worked at in the story. 

The romance was too insta and along with some spy plot aspects, a bit of development was missing for me. There was a scene between Sylvia and Georgiana, Sylvia discounting the personal reasons Georgiana might have made in her decision to marry and Georgiana getting frustrated with Sylvia not making the choice to protect herself, that leapt off the pages for me because of the emotion and layers behind it and it made me want even more scenes of Sylvia and Georgiana together. Captain Harris, and Georgiana obviously have a past together and the restrained emotion between the two look to be the stars of the next in the series.

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