I know this blog usually focuses on Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance but I do occasionally veer off into other areas and one of my favorites is Regency Romances.This book was so good I had to know more about it. In researching it I realized how many other bloggers/reviews had felt the same way I did when they read this book. Lord of Scoundrels originally came out in 1995, then was re-released several times due to demand, with accompanying cover changes. Several other reviewers referred to this book as "The One." I don't want to plagiarize, but that is how I feel about it too, and much like waiting for my husband until I was 33 and never thinking I'd find "the one" in real life, which I was happy to discover I was wrong about, I never thought I'd find a Romance novel that was "the one" for me either. I'm so happy to have been wrong there as well. Most of you out there, will already know about this book. It won many awards, it is on the Goodreads and Amazon lists in the top numbers of best Romance ever, next to very famous books, like "Gone with the Wind," and "Pride and Prejudice." All I know is, I re-read it almost immediately ( the same day!). Then throughout the week I've picked it up repeatedly to re-read my favorite parts. I had to stop myself from re-reading it all over again, just writing this review. It's that good.
How I missed this book I don't know, it shows my lack of attention to anything but UF/PNR lately, but sometimes you really need to switch things up and boy am I glad I did.
The beginning of Lord of Scoundrels is heartbreaking. It is short, and you have to get through it to get to the heart of the story, but it gives you a very good understanding of why this tortured hero, is so damn tortured. Once you get past that, the book is a delight and as funny and witty as one could hope for, while still tugging at your heart strings.
Sebastian Ballister, Lord Dain is one of the most self-loathing heros (deep down) you'll ever read and he will only consort with courtesans as he has no interest in marriage and wants nothing to do with a society lady. He is surrounded by a crowd of hangers on, while he drinks, gambles and whores across Paris. On the surface, he acts like he owns the world, and he has everyone intimidated or admiring of him. He is big, tall, and strong, but NOT the traditionally handsome hero (which I loved),in fact he thinks he is ugly, but he is one of those men who walks into a room and sucks the air right out of it. Gently reared women have been known to faint just meeting him.
Chase doesn't waste any time setting up the clash between our protagonists. Jessica Trent may be a "Lady" but she's helped raise all ten of her male cousins, and she is not to be messed with. Her brother Bertie, an adorable-addleplated fool has fallen in with bad company (Lord Dain himself). At one point one of Dain's friends decides Jessica must have gotten all the brains in the family.
Jessica has come to Paris with her beautiful and famed "Femme Fatale" grandmother to try to save Bertie from himself and the bad company he is keeping. Her widowed Grandmother, Genevieve is a wonderful, if underutilized character. She is so gorgeous and witty and charismatic she still has men clamoring over her some of which are half her age, which is scandalous in and of itself. I adored her, and just the concept of an older woman still having that much Mojo. At one point her latest lover offers to duel Dain to protect Jessica's reputation, just for Genevieve who he just met by the way. My god...the idea of that. These are side characters and yet they are so fascinating, part of which makes this book so fantastic.
Jessica and Dain are instantly attracted to each other and both recognize the impossibility of anything happening between them. He hasn't been out in polite society in close to eight years, he has had no interest in doing so and he has no intention of tying himself down with a wife. Jessica is a throw back to her widowed Grandmother, her interest in life far outweighs her interest in marriage; she turns down six men a year on average. The sparks fly instantly as Dain realizes the beautiful Jessica Trent is not intimidated by him in the least.
"Dain wasn't certain what exactly was wrong with her, but he had no doubt that something was. He was Lord Beelzebub, wasn't he? She was supposed to faint, or recoil in horrified revulsion at the very least. Yet she had gazed at him as bold as brass, and it had seemed for a moment as though the creature were actually flirting with him."
In trying to shock her by showing her an erotic item in an antique story, he passes up purchasing the Russian Icon he really wants. Jessica purchases the Icon and it turns out to be extremely valuable, but that isn't the real reason Dain wants it so badly, and we find out why later in a very touching scene.
At a popular café, they meet to discuss the Icon. He offers her 1500 pounds to purchase it. She says she believes it is worth 5,000 (and she is correct). 170 years ago, 5000 pounds wasn't just "alot" of money, it was a fortune.
She offers to give him the Icon if he'll leave her brother alone, something he wanted to do of his own accord because Bertie drives him nuts, but just to be obstinate, out of sheer pride and spite, he refuses and so the games begin. He tells her if she doesn't sell him the Icon he will hurt her reputation and he can do it in under 5 minutes. She says for the first time in the book, a phrase that each of them takes turns saying to the other to shock, goad, or irritate each other, "I'd like to see you try."
He then proceeds to publically, seductively, and slowly unbutton her long gloves while leaning close and speaking Italian as if they were lovers, making sure everyone in the café is watching them, thinking she will run away to save her reputation. This is Lord Beelzebub we're talking here. A man who hasn't looked at a woman of the aristocracy...ever. By simply focusing his attention on her, he is drawing attention to her. He starts out just talking softly in Italian about boring things of no consequence to show he doesn't care, but doing it seductively while he pretends to be mentally undressing her while he removes her gloves. But slowly as the sexual tension builds he switches to actually telling her how he feels (all in a language luckily she doesn't speak) and although she doesn't understand the language, she's got a pretty good idea he's quit pretending and is saying shocking things to her. While she stares at him with wide eyed he suddenly finds himself completely into her to the point that it takes him a few moments to realize she has turned the tables on him.
Smiling sweetly, she tells him she is sorry to hurt his reputation, because now everyone in town will think he is infatuated with her, a society spinster and this will have everyone talking about HIM and she is right. All his friends and some of his enemies start following these two's activities, and making bets at the club. Everyone it seems has noticed that the notorious rake, the Lord Dain has begun chasing after a spinster, albeit a beautiful one.
Every time Dain tries to shock Jessica she ups the anty. He wants her so badly but he can't admit it, not even to himself so he acts out and acts badly at times. The two of them become the focal point of Parisian and London gossip as nobody knows what will happen next when they are together. At one point early on, when they both show up at a party, bets are being laid left and right. No one has ever seen him act this way about a woman of polite society.
There are so many scenes that are my favorite I can't list them all. Jessica is quite possibly my favorite romance heroine. She doesn't lose her cool, she thinks everything through logically while at the same being completely honest with herself and what she is feeling. Her conversations with her Grandmother are wonderful, instead of having a close friend or a girlfriend to go to as a confidant with these socially unacceptable feelings, (She admits she fell in 'lust' with Dain the moment they met and she screwed him out of the Icon), she honestly discusses each of their interactions with her Grandmother who is thrice cool by the way. Jessica also recognizes fairly early on that the man she is in lust with, has some fairly significant emotional damage, likely done to him at an early age.
Jessica realizes she is falling passionately in love with someone who, unless he gets over his issues, could quite possibly make her completely miserable if not actually ruin her life. There are scenes that are so poignant they are almost heartbreaking. After a huge fight and then a passionate make out session in the rain, he goes to a fancy party he knows she is at and stands in the shadows just to see her leave the party late at night with another man. He can't believe a woman as beautiful as she is, would be interested in him. He truly believes he is a big, ugly man both inside and out, undeserving of love and no attractive high class woman could ever want him, especially not Jessica Trent, who appears to be besting him at almost every turn. If he can get past his insecurities, he still knows he can't have her sexually, not playing by societies rules since she is aristocracy and he swears he'll never marry so he's a miserable, sexually frustrated mess. Everyone in society is inviting both of them to their events hoping there will be a showdown, or a train wreck of some kind and eventually Dain and Jessica comply
A very savvy hostess invites them both to her fancy dress Ball, and lets each of them know she has invited the other. Jessica has reached the point where she is ready to give up the game and leave the country. It's become too much, all of it. Her feelings for him, what ever screwed up feelings he has for her, it can't work out and she knows it. But she is told by everyone that it will hurt his pride if she doesn't show up at this ball and he attends, so against her wishes, she goes. Instead of a dance card, the women are given fans which the men sign, indicating which dance they want. And she saves the last two dances for him, hoping he'll show and half hoping he won't. She waits and waits until she is forced to finally conceed he is standing HER up and she gives the dances away. He appears in an almost operatically dramatic fashion at the stroke of midnight-dressed all in black .Below is just part of the scene , but it shows so much about these two. Her honesty, and his obsession with her.
He kept on marching until the men crowding about Miss Trent had to give way or be trodden down. They gave way, but they didn't go away. He swept one heavy-lidded glance over them. "Go away," he said quietly. They went. He gave Miss Trent a slow, head-to-toe survey. She returned the favor.
Ignoring the simmering sensation her leisurely grey gaze triggered, he let his attention drift to her bodice, and boldly studied the rampant display of creamy white shoulders and bosom. "It must be held up with wires," he said. "Otherwise, your dressmaker has discovered a method of defying the laws of gravity
"It is lined with a stiffening material and bones, like a corset," she said calmly. "It is horridly uncomfortable, but it is the height of fashion, and I dared not risk your displeasure by appearing a dowd."
"Ah, you were confident I'd come," he said. "Because you are irresistible."
"I hope I'm not so suicidal as to wish to be irresistible to you." She fanned herself. "The simple fact is that there seems to be a farce in progress, of which we are the principals. I am prepared to take reasonable measures to help put an end to it. You set the tongues wagging with the scene in the coffee shop, but I will admit that I provided provocation," she added quickly, before he could retort. "I also admit that the gossip might have died down if I hadn't burst into your house and annoyed you." Her color rose. "As to what happened afterward, no one saw, apparently, which makes it irrelevant to the problem at hand."
He noted that she was gripping her fan tightly and that her bosom was rising and falling with a rapidity indicative of agitation. He smiled. "You did not behave, at the time, as though it were irrelevant. On the contrary--"
"Dain, I kissed you," she said evenly. "I see no reason to make an issue of it. It was not the first time you've ever been kissed and it won't be the last."
"Good heavens, Miss Trent, you are not threatening to do it again?" He widened his eyes in mock horror.
She let out a sigh. "I knew it was too much to hope you would be reasonable."
"What a woman means by a `reasonable' man is one she can manage," he said. "You are correct, Miss Trent. It is too much to hope. I hear someone sawing at a violin. A waltz, or an approximation thereof, appears to be in the offing."
"So it does," she said tightly.
"Then we shall dance," he said.
"No, we shan't," she said. "I had saved two dances because...Well, it doesn't matter. I already have a partner for this one."
"Certainly. Me."
She held up her fan in front of his face, to display the masculine scribbling upon the sticks. "Look carefully," she said. "Do you see `Beelzebub' written there?"
"I'm not shortsighted," he said, extracting the fan from her tense fingers. "You needn't hold it so close. Ah, yes, is this the one?" He pointed to a stick. "Rouvier?"
"Yes," she said, looking past him. "Here he comes."
Dain turned. A Frenchman was warily approaching, his countenance pale. Dain fanned himself. The man paused. Smiling, Dain pressed thumb and forefinger to the stick with "Rouvier" written on it. It snapped. Rouvier went away.
Dain turned back to Miss Trent and, still smiling, broke each stick, one by one. Then he thrust the demolished fan into the fern pot. He held out his hand. "My dance, I believe." It was a primitive display, Jessica told herself. On the scale of social development it was about one notch above hitting her over the head with a club and dragging her away by her hair. Only Dain could get away with it, just as only he could clear the field of rivals simply by telling them, without the smallest self-consciousness or subtlety, to go away. And only she, besotted lunatic that she was, would find it all dizzyingly romantic. She took his hand.
Later during the dance, he accuses her of not putting up much of a fight when it comes to ignoring him and she, in complete Jessica fashion, admits it.
His mouth curved into that aggravatingly mocking smile. "I see. You find me irresistible."
"I'll get over it," she said. "I'm going home tomorrow."
I love this! She admits she's falling for him and then she sets him off balance before he can even gloat over it by telling him she'll get over him and she's going to leave Paris in the morning.
He doesn't want her to leave, he's falling in love with her, even if he can't admit it.He lets down his guard emotionally and then when he jumps to the wrong conclusion as to what comes next, he does something reprehensible. Given his past and given the misunderstanding, you understand his motivations and why, but given their society's rules, he behaves horribly. This is part of what makes Chase's book so brilliant. You understand this man. You feel bad for him. Yet...you want to shoot him.
Jessica does...shoot him, that is. And then outwits him legally as well. Despite the fact that she shot him and his arm now doesn't function properly, this is where you see the change in him. He realizes he has wronged her horribly and he steps up to the plate and does the right thing, and Jessica takes a huge gamble. I don't know if I would have had the nerve for half the things Jessica does in this book. Given the strictures of their so called "polite" society, with its viciousness and controlling of women, she takes a major risk.
It is fantastic. Then...no, I can't tell you. It's too delicious. The writing is smart, witty, hilarious, heart breaking, and sexy as hell and just when you think the book is just about the two of them, a whole other plot comes sweeping in and it takes everything to a completely deeper level. It isn't one of those boring subplots that come in out of nowhere in so many Regency's to add to the "tension", so much as a deepening of the one that has already been playing out, taking the characters to a place emotionally that is indescribly deeper then where they started. Maybe they would have gotten there on their own without this subplot but it almost comes out of nowhere (until you realize Chase laid the groundwork for it solidly early on and you were just too busy watching fireworks to notice a stray sentence here or there).
Dain is a mess, yet by the nature of the very realistic backstory, you find him sympathetic even when he does unsympathetic things. I didn't agree at all with how he behaved in regards to this situation, yet I completely understood it. At one point, she begins to tell him it isn't his fault he over reacts, he is high strung and deeply sensitive. At first he is outraged she would even suggest something like this. By the end of the book he's recognizing, he really is those things and because of what happened to him as a child, part of him quit growing emotionally at that point and it is causing him issues in his life.
He is a real person, not a card board cut out "beautiful man" who is like very other Regency Hero. Dain's nothing like the usual run of the mill rake. He is actually a deeply sensitive person underneath all that bravado and Jessica has the common sense necessary to see through his historonics to the despretly unhappy person who she loves. Chase is a brilliant writer who makes someone who could seem completely unredeemable, into a Hero by the books end.
Jessica is not just clever, she is that very rare individual in a historical romance, completely self-aware, more so than any female heroine of a love story I've ever read. She is honest with herself and it is so refreshing. She also isn't afraid of her feelings. When these two people come together, things blow up. Lighting storms, relationships, reputations.You name it, it is like one of them is the fuse and one is the bomb.As much as I loved Jessica's way of handling Dain, her way of handling his son made me love her even more.
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Masculine pride was an exceedingly precious and fragile item. That was why males built fortresses about it, practically from infancy.Highlighted by 362 Kindle readers- “Pardon one offense,” Publilius had said, “and you encourage the commission of many.”Highlighted by 319 Kindle readers
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Reviews with images
Strong Beauty & the Beast vibes, but with banter & gothic angst
I breezed through this in most of a day, between work breaks. Honestly, it's a 3.5* book, but I rounded up because it was enjoyable. My second Twitter recommendation, actually! The story is told in dual third-person POV, between Jessica and Dain. (Yes, it was weird seeing such a 21st century name in 18th century surroundings. Especially after finishing New Girl, again.) This can be read as a standalone--or at least I wasn't lost doing so.The story is very similar to Tessa Dare's "The Duchess Deal", just with the internal drama amped up to 11. Dain had a horrid childhood, strong Italian looks, and very judgemental peers. This all built to a hard-drinking, wenching, disdainful man. Oh, and he made a lot of money to piss off his father, so that was fun.Jessica was incredibly independent and close with her grandmother; a nice side relationship. Unlike the women of Bridgerton, Jessica is well versed in physical love...in theory. She also knows how to shoot and get under Dain's skin--two very useful skills.Some of the usual gender miscommunications occur throughout their "courtship" and early marriage. I did like that they readily admitted their attraction and what they expected from marriage. Dain was also always quick to point out how much money he spent, which I found weirdly funny. The descriptions of the moors and the English village were very evocative, almost Gothic without me hating it.The sexy scenes are well-written, but get more on the emotional than graphic side. These two avoid a lot of bigger discussions and focus on passion.I enjoyed the final villain, the twist for Dain, and the still snarky revelation. An epilogue would've been nice! I guess Julia Quinn has spoiled me there.
Top reviews from other countries
Madina Y
Second time…still amazing…maybe more
Reviewed in Australia on June 15, 2023