🧺 Book Review 🧺

Thanks to @netgalley for early access to this book which publishes today.

✔️ Second Chance
✔️ Secret Identity
✔️ Revenge

If you are into betrayal/revenge stories, Taming the Rake could work for you. It's about Gladys, a wallflower who daydreams about falling in love. And she does, only he doesn't come to propose which leads her to lose everything. Years later, she has a chance to have revenge - by making him fall in love with her so she can break HIS heart.

I liked Gladys well enough, but I was not a particular fan of Reuben, the MMC. I could not get over his betrayal of her. I don't think he suffered enough to make up for it.

YMMV - I think folks who enjoy the betrayal trope would like this. It was well written, but this book was not for me.

Steam 🔥🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕

Gladys Bell is the eldest of two daughters who is on her fourth season without a husband. Her parents are desperate for her to marry so they can launch her younger, more attractive sister, Kitty. At the annual matchmaking festival, she is mistaken for a love interest by Reuben Medford, a scandalous rake who has no marital intentions and is only at the festival at the behest of a Lady he only knows as Lady Midnight. After Gladys is observed with leaves in her hair and her dress askew, she is ruined and disowned by her parents. She has had to fend for of herself for the past 5 years and she returns to the scene of her ruination to take revenge on the person who caused her downfall. Can either of these two individuals, both of whom seem to be looking for love in the wrong places, find a future together? A great followup to the initial book. I will look forward to reading the rest of the series.

I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley. I am voluntarily leaving a review.

Erica Ridley brings us back to the festivities with Taming the Rake, the second installment in the Lords in Love duet series with Darcy Burke.

This series revolves around the Marrywell May Day marriage festival- and weeklong festivities were single people mingle in the hopes of meeting their match!

In Ridley’s instalment, we first meet Gladys, a wallflower on her fourth season, trying to make a match to save her family. She’s mistaken by notorious rake, Ruben Medford, and pulled off into an illicit tryst that sees her ruined and him off to rake again!

Four years later, Gladys returns to the scene of the crime to enact her revenge against Ruben. No longer a wallflower, she’ll use all of her assets to make him fall for her and destroy him like shit he destroyed her!

All right folks, I’m not usually one for a revenge plot, but this one was delicious! And well deserved… Even though Ruben and his ignorance had no clue about the repercussions of his actions.

These two had so much chemistry I loved seeing the sparks in their first encounter, and then again, as Ruben tries to get the mysterious enigma that is Gladys to accept his pursuit.

Another really cool element of this book was seeing actual consequences for ruination being played out. Often we read about the side characters being ruined, or the threat of being ruined. Gladys is ruined. And she has real consequences.

Overall, I just loved how really created these characters that I wanted to hate and love each other so much! This book pulled me in from the start, and I could not stop!

I think at this point, I’m obsessed with this Marrywell Festival and I cannot wait to see what antics and matches are made in the next four books!

Thanks to Erica Ridley and NetGalley for my review copy.

Taming the Rake by Erica Ridley was unputdownable! I enjoyed book one of the Lords in Love series, but it had the burden of providing the background of Marrywell and its matchmaking festival.

Gladys and Reuben’s story starts off strong. My heart broke for Gladys when her complete faith in Reuben after meeting in the garden was proven to be misplaced. Fast forward five years, and Gladys is back with a vengeance! She’s no longer the shy, retiring wallflower. Instead she’s a popular dance partner. She escaped the ballroom to get some air, and she’s reunited with Reuben who has no clue that she’s his mysterious and elusive Lady Dawn.

I couldn’t get enough of their enemies to lovers turned second chance romance! Gladys was bound and determined to make Reuben feel the way she did when he broke her heart and changed the course of her life five years earlier. Reuben has gotten the message from so-called family that he’s unworthy of being loved. Watching them fall in love without realizing it was an absolute pleasure.

Miscommunication started the chain of events at the beginning of the book and remains a theme almost to the end. I was so excited for the two of them about 75% of the way through the book, only to have my hopes dashed due to more miscommunication. They do get their HEA, thank goodness, but it’s a journey.

This is the second book in this series and a return visit to the Mayday festival in Marrywell. After being compromised by Reuben Medford, Wallflower Gladys thought would marry her, Disowned and sent away by her family with no one to turn to she s forced into prostitution and becomes a courtesan. Five years later she returns and vows to get her revenge on Reuben, but who’s heart is being won, beware fair maiden.

A Grand Plan.
Miss Gladys Bell is determined to have her revenge on the rake who ruined her life. Can she do so without her heart being broken a second time?
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Two very different main characters Neither comes off as what you usually expect from a romance. Still an interesting story line. As expected they do have a HEA

A tale of one action changing your life forever. At least that is what happened when wallflower Gladys meets notorious wastrel Reuben.

Revenge is the objective and Gladys is determined to get it after a few years later. Of course things never turn out how you thing and this story will keep you on a journey of discovery!

This was great and could have been longer. I loved the revenge aspect and Gladys executed her revenge plan so perfectly. He also groveled extremely well, and we love a good grovel.

When Miss Gladys Bell goes from being a wallflower to a social piranha after time spent with Reuben Medford, she is determined to make him pay. After his callous behaviour, when he not only causes her to lose her dowry and her family, but he also can’t even remember who she is. So, Gladys decides that she will crush him, just as he did her, and she will enjoy the satisfaction. Yet, as they spend time together, neither is prepared for the consequences.
The romance is intense, with two very passionate characters. Surprisingly, there are no other characters aside the Reuben and Gladys, with the brief description of her mother and sister, which I thought interesting. Another aspect that I questioned was that whilst Reuben is attracted to his “Lady Dawn” which is the name he uses for Gladys when he first meets her, this intensity wasn’t explored in more detail. Consequently, I didn’t feel so confident in his feelings when they meet again. I was also quite surprised at how Glady’s life has changed after her downfall, and wondered whether she would have had emerged without greater bitterness towards everyone or maybe that explained why there was no other person in her life.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Not my favorite Erica Ridley. First of all, despise her family. Part of it just felt a bit too far stretched and like JEEZ I hate them. None of the characters really seemed to grab my attention and it took over 50% for me to even get into the book. In the beginning I almost DNF'd solely based on secondhand embarrassment I got from Gladys. She's a bit older than your typical debutante but I really just can't deal with her naïveté.

Initial thoughts: Not my favorite Erica Ridley thus far. I suppose they can't all be my favorite though. The characters haven't grabbed me like they usually do with her books - you have the painfully naive debutante turned jaded courtesan (with convenient time skip that dramatically lessens the impact) and the unapologetic rake who hasn't changed. But he's secretly a lover of history who would rather be reading. So far it doesn't fit.

Final thoughts: While I did somewhat enjoy the second half of the book, with Gladys' determined use of her hourglass to limit their meetings, which I found very comical, and she and Reuben finding how much they have in common (desire for solitude, preference for curling up with books and cats) -- this is where the story really shines -- it still felt rushed.

And I really dislike the callous way Gladys was treated by everyone in the first half. And I really, really dislike the 5-year time skip in the middle where Gladys goes from an innocent girl not even allowed to read newspapers for fear of being corrupted, then left penniless and alone on the streets after being forcibly kissed, to a courtesan with enough money to keep a townhouse in London and not worry about money (or men) for the rest of her life. That strains all credibility and makes suspension of disbelief impossible.

I also very much disliked Reuben's 'oh poor me, women only want me for sex but I'm inherently unloveable so I can only ever be a rake' mentality. It didn't sit well with me.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Erica Ridley, and Webmotion for providing an early copy for review.

This was a well written book but contained many of the things I dislike such as revenge and courtesan situations. It just wasn't something I could buy into. The idea that her whole family thought her too plain for a husband but men would pay enough money to be with her that she could be independently wealthy just seemed so unlikely. I also wasn't vastly taken with Rueben's up and down personality where he is supposed to mourn for the one that got away while not changing his behaviour was just not for me, which was a shame as I did like the first book in this series. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Enjoyable return to Marrywell! This is a little bit of a different take on regency romance. A wallflower is compromised and promptly forgotten by a rake only to return five years later looking for revenge. I fell hard for Gladys and her deep internal strength. I have a feeling reviews are going to be mixed as it’s not often one comes across a FMC who is a former sex worker and unrepentant about doing what was needed to survive. Also Gladys’ parents can suck it. I strongly disliked them before they shunned her, but afterwards ugh, just ugh.

**Received an eARC via NetGalley**

Taming the Rake
Second book in the Lords in Love Series
Rating: 3 stars
Thank you to the publisher for the ARC given through NetGalley for review. All opinions are my own.


*******SPOILERS AHEAD*********



Taming the Rake tells the romance of Reuben and Gladys. Two people who met at the wrong time and place. It is that fateful encounter that even though it brought happiness to Gladys for a mere short time, she later paid dire consequences in regards to her reputation and family. It is then that she plans to get revenge from Reuben, since it is his actions that ruined her reputation.
This is the first historical romance that I've read in which the female lead is the one who plans to destroy the love interest. It was heartbreaking to see what Gladys had to endure in order to survive in a society who only held women accountable for when indiscretions happened.
I was very invested in the story to see how she would carry out this so called revenge that she'd been planning for five years. I enjoyed seeing her plan come to fruition, sadly it was at a slow pace, but then suddenly I felt that the story was cut short. I feel that he did not do enough groveling in order to earn her forgiveness. Yes, he did say the right words but I would have liked for the groveling to be dragged out a little more.

This is definitely not the type of story one expects these days and that's partly why I liked it so much. In so many romance stories the prostitutes are characterized as very one-dimensional and not worth thinking about. But here we get to see one situation that would lead a young woman into such a lifestyle. I felt so bad for Gladys at the beginning when her family pretty much just threw her out with no support at all. And then to find out that Kitty married the man who had planned to marry Gladys just to get some land made me wonder if her sister had any loyalty to her at all - how did she end up with someone who could have set her sister up for a miserable life? I can completely understand why Gladys hated Reuben - he was a selfish jackass in his youth. When they meet up again as adults it was fun to watch him struggle to understand why he was having such a hard time seducing Gladys (who got to hate him even more when it was clear he really didn't remember his actions from all those years ago). It's funny that her plan for revenge was actually what brought him to fall in love with her. The scene where she comes clean about everything and tells him how he ruined her life was so well written. Everything that needed to be said in that moment was. Reuben once again could have saved himself some trouble but not being a moron, but it was good to see him have to work just a little bit more in order to finally get the woman meant for him.

This book was very different from Darcy Burke's first book in the series and the connection was pretty thin, but I am willing to overlook that. I can't wait to see what these authors have in store for us with the rest of the series!

I adore Erica Ridley's books. I love how different they are from others based in the same time period. In this book, it showed how quickly and easily a reputation is lost. In other books, the characters try to find a way to repair the reputation or quickly marry to save the lady. In this one, they didn't. Gladys's reputation was destroyed and was left to survive one of the very few ways a gently-raised woman who lost her reputation and by extension, her family, in that time period could survive. She came out stronger but did not lose herself. I appreciated the way Ms. Ridley tells this story.

This was such a good book with it's emotion churning content.
There will be spoilers.
This book took me from the lowest of low to the highest of highs.
The heroine is 21 years old and she has to marry, or her dowry will go to her younger sister. She currently has a betrothed, but only because he wants her dowry which is a large chunk of land in Wales. The family attends a match making festival in Marywell. It is a quaint town on the sea that offers a week long fair with various amusements such as assemblies, a beer garden, a large maze and various teas, garden parties and picnics. Many single people who are not doing well go to the festival to meet other people. The heroine is there with her family. She goes into the garden to spy on a famous rake. But he grabs her and since it is a masquerade, they are wearing masks. They talk and he kisses her, musses her hair and bodice. Her parents are horrified and take her to their rented rooms. She is sure he will come to ask for her hand in marriage. She goes so far as to turn down the man who wants the land and he marries her sister instead. The rake never shows up. She tries to visit him at his hotel but she is seen. At the assembly that night, gossip runs rampant and her parents kick her into the street with nothing.
I was crying my eyes out at this point. A 21 year old virgin is sent to the streets to fend for herself. But being a practical woman, she negotiates with a madam and is able to become a popular courtesan. She changes her name to prevent shaming her family and she works hard and saves all of her money.
Within five years, she is able to retire. She decides to get her revenge on the rake. She goes back to where it all started.
The hero, the rake, is at the matchmaking festival again. He has spent the last five years flip flopping between abstinence and anxious couplings with women similar to the lady of the garden. He is convinced she is married and is trying to move on. But, as he is in the garden maze, he sees a lady who reminds him of 'Lady Dawn' from so many years ago.
This story had me so mad that the heroine had to go through such horrific events. And over a kiss! There were such other worse things that could have happened to her. Even though this is a romance novel, there is nothing romantic about having to sell your body to survive. I was so involved in this story from the beginning.
I enjoyed the characters and the story plot. I found the supporting characters to be kept to a minimum. The setting was the festival for the most part and it was very descriptive.
I give this book 5 stars and recommend reading. was such a good book with it's emotion churning content.
There will be spoilers.
This book took me from the lowest of low to the highest of highs.
The heroine is 21 years old and she has to marry, or her dowry will go to her younger sister. She currently has a betrothed, but only because he wants her dowry which is a large chunk of land in Wales. The family attends a match making festival in Marywell. It is a quaint town on the sea that offers a week long fair with various amusements such as assemblies, a beer garden, a large maze and various teas, garden parties and picnics. Many single people who are not doing well go to the festival to meet other people. The heroine is there with her family. She goes into the garden to spy on a famous rake. But he grabs her and since it is a masquerade, they are wearing masks. They talk and he kisses her, musses her hair and bodice. Her parents are horrified and take her to their rented rooms. She is sure he will come to ask for her hand in marriage. She goes so far as to turn down the man who wants the land and he marries her sister instead. The rake never shows up. She tries to visit him at his hotel but she is seen. At the assembly that night, gossip runs rampant and her parents kick her into the street with nothing.
I was crying my eyes out at this point. A 21 year old virgin is sent to the streets to fend for herself. But being a practical woman, she negotiates with a madam and is able to become a popular courtesan. She changes her name to prevent shaming her family and she works hard and saves all of her money.
Within five years, she is able to retire. She decides to get her revenge on the rake. She goes back to where it all started.
The hero, the rake, is at the matchmaking festival again. He has spent the last five years flip flopping between abstinence and anxious couplings with women similar to the lady of the garden. He is convinced she is married and is trying to move on. But, as he is in the garden maze, he sees a lady who reminds him of 'Lady Dawn' from so many years ago.
This story had me so mad that the heroine had to go through such horrific events. And over a kiss! There were such other worse things that could have happened to her. Even though this is a romance novel, there is nothing romantic about having to sell your body to survive. I was so involved in this story from the beginning.
I enjoyed the characters and the story plot. I found the supporting characters to be kept to a minimum. The setting was the festival for the most part and it was very descriptive.
I give this book 5 stars and recommend reading.

Well-written, with so many cute scenes and sexy moments, Taming the Rake is a very entertaining read!

Gladys Bell, an extremely naive, on-the-shelf wallflower is the tamer of the titular rake in this short-and-sweet novel. The rake in question is a supremely hot man who loves history books and cats, so I can't say I blame Gladys. But Gladys does blame Reuben. She blames him for ruining her life, for destroying her hopes and aspirations, and for him being the reason her family disowned her and left her on the streets. She returns, hardened, to exact revenge for her lost dreams.
Reuben is a sad rake, not a happy one, in the sense his desire for rakish behavior stems from insecurity and an inferiority complex the size of England. He thinks he does not deserve love, and Gladys agrees. Until she goes and falls in love with him.

My Favorite Parts - The subversion of the ' let me stand behind you and show you how to fire a gun/hit a ball' trope. The excellent usage of the hourglass. This novel also features a great grovel, which is always a plus.

My thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!

Gladys was pushed by her family to marry Alsop, a man who wanted her land dowry but had no interest in Gladys herself. Reuben came along and compromised her but failed to follow through with an offer. Gladys was disowned by her family and Alsop married her sister for the land. Gladys had no money or way to support herself so she had to become a courtesan. Years later, Reuben reenters her life and love ensues but can they overcome the hurtful past and move forward? Reuben realizes he has caused Gladys horrible pain and wants to make it up to her. Gladys loves him but her heart is scarred and family support nonexistent.
A heart rending story with a HEA.