Series: Last Chance Scoundrels, #1
Traits & Tropes: brother's best friend; reformed rake; lessons; disguised
Publication Date: 02.22.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, England, 1818
Heat Level: 3
Rating: 5 stars!
Kieran Ransome has always been a bit of a scoundrel, but when his latest escapade results in a scandal that could damage his sister’s reputation, his parents give him, his brother and their best friend an ultimatum: they must marry respectable wives or be disinherited. Kieran has no idea how to gain entry into the society he has shunned and knows only one lady who might be able to help him.
Celeste Kilburn is much loved amongst the most influential members of high society. She’s spent so much time maintaining her flawless reputation that she is barred from any of the adventure she secretly longs for and she’s desperate for a little freedom from the pedestal she’s been placed upon. When her older brother’s best friend, Kieran, asks for her help rehabbing his reputation, Celeste agrees to help him get the right invitations if he introduces her to the darker side of London.
Kieran and Celeste attend proper musicales and soirees by day while he escorts her, disguised as “Salome,” to variously inappropriate parties and venues by night. But the more time they spend together, the more the thread of attraction between them grows into something more, an inescapable longing to be together. Unfortunately, their midnight romps have not gone unnoticed and their discovery endangers both Celeste’s freedom and any hope she has of establishing a future with Kieran, unless he can find a way to save the woman he’s come to love.
I can honestly say this is the first book in some time that I have truly loved. I adored both Kieran and Celeste as individuals and they were perfect for each other as a couple.
Lately in historical romance it seems like every single book harps on about the struggle of women and how few rights they had compared to men. Of course, this is terrible, but we all know this and it's something we still experience now, just to a lesser extent. For that reason, I don’t always want to be constantly reminded of that when I’m reading a romance story and I get weary of heroines who are ‘independent’ but really just sound like shrewish harpies on the page and wind up standing in their own way and creating their own problems because they don’t want to ask for help. All this to say that Celeste is not like this at all. We still get the same message about women’s lack of choices in this time, but from a different angle, with a heroine who is just as boxed in by her family as she is by society. She is well liked by all and seems happy and well-adjusted, so her family doesn’t think to question whether she truly is happy, and she finally decides to make that happen for herself. I found that to be utterly relatable and I think everyone, regardless of gender or circumstance will be able to resonate with that idea of feeling pressure to please one’s family or fit oneself into a certain mold, even if that mold doesn’t really fit.
Celeste has spent her life, since her family’s move up to wealth and higher-class social circles, ensuring their respectability. All responsibility for the family’s reputation has fallen on her shoulders because of her father and brother, though they didn’t really mean to, they’re merely clueless. Kieran has spent his life seeking pleasure, sensation, and experience from life because he gets almost no notice at all from his family other than when they deride him for his poetry or seeming aimlessness. Beneath his dirty-talking playboy persona there lies a man of deep emotion and depth of feeling, hiding his tender heart behind the rakish façade. Though Kieran and Celeste started their association seeking mutual benefit for themselves, each winds up charmed by the other and seeking things that will bring the other joy. It is as if Kieran and Celeste are the first people to see one another for who they truly are, beneath any societal façade or propriety. Kieran challenged Celeste with new, scandalous experiences that had been forbidden to her and she gave him a place of acceptance in which he could show her every side of himself without fear of judgment or rejection. I also think it was also very interesting that we had a different spin on class differences here. Celeste was the one with a low-class background, having grown up poor in a London rookery, while Kieran was the youngest son of a marquess and grew up with wealth and privilege and yet it is Celeste who is the respectable one trying to help Kieran rehab his reputation and gain society’s acceptance. I also adored the fact that, though Celeste gains her freedom and learns more about how to be both her true self and the lady she shows to society, Kieran is still the one who gets to sweep in at the end and rescue her from the threat against her. If things had played out any other way, it just wouldn't have worked with the same magic. Kieran trying to give Celeste the freedom she craved only to have her actively choose him, when he’d experienced a lifetime of being overlooked by those who were supposed to love him unconditionally…I swoon.
I just can’t see enough about how much I enjoyed the way this story was handled. We do have a villainous element and a big roadblock to the couple’s happiness, but this was dealt with brilliantly, in a way that allowed Kieran to shine, and which kept the angst level low enough that, while I didn’t want to put the book down, I wasn’t too stressed about it, and it never felt like Celeste and Kieran were anything less than inevitable. I hadn’t expected this to be such a slow burn, but the way the tension continuously ramped up between Celeste and Kieran was just delicious and when they did come together, the steamy scenes between them were absolutely fire. I think it’s important to note that not only were they hot, but the care and tenderness between these characters was so clear and well done, with such romantic dialogue. It was just perfect. I loved seeing Kieran’s parents, and to a lesser extent Celeste’s father and even her brother, be put in their places and I hope we get more of that in the next books as well. I loved Finn and Dom as side characters too and I’m so looking forward to their stories.
Anyone who’s been following my reviews at all lately will know I haven’t written anything so long in quite a while and definitely nothing so gushing as this, so this book was really special to me. I can’t say enough good things about it, but it made me very happy to read and that is truly saying something right about now. This is definitely one I would recommend.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1663562517
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4496219057
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