This book had a compelling setup with its tropes of a reformed rake and a widow finding a second chance at love. Unfortunately, the execution fell flat for me. I kinda hated both main characters. Roxanne’s backstory of being trapped in a controlling marriage is tragic, but her actions after gaining freedom were difficult to reconcile with. The fact that she did not immediately rush to see her institutionalized child upon her husband's death, and the harsh way she talked about the man she supposedly loved since childhood, made it hard to root for her as a heroine.

Graham’s behavior was equally problematic. Withholding devastating news about her child to instead engage in a romantic encounter was not the act of a reformed, caring hero but one of profound selfishness. This crucial moment shattered any believability in their romance for me. Plus the lack of mourning for the child--they talked more about travel plans than the death. Furthermore, their intimate scenes felt rushed and mechanical, lacking the emotional depth and foreplay that makes a historical romance satisfying.

The plot suffered from uneven pacing and a confusing timeline. The relationship progression felt abrupt—they agreed to a casual courtship, then were suddenly discussing a distant marriage, and then immediately planning a rushed wedding. Plus several subplots were introduced but went nowhere, most notably the threat from the evil stepson. There was also just a lot of superfluous stuff--"I bought you camera equipment" "I didn't open it" "It's waiting for you" "Let's go open it" "Actually I had it moved to my house"--and then nothing happens with the photography.

Bottom line: the elements for a great story were there, but a lot more editing would be needed to bring it together.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is the first book in the Endless Love series by JR Salisbury. The MFC, Roxanne, the dowager countess of Temple, is the sister of a Duke who was married as a young girl to a much older nobleman who treated her badly. This was exacerbated following the birth of their son who was mentally challenged. Upon Roxanne’s husband’s demise and her return to London, she discovers from the lawyers that her late husband left her a house that once belonged to his former mistress who had died!

Luckily for Rox, her brother Arthur comes to her rescue and asks her to stay with him until she purchases a new home for herself. While there, she reconnects with her childhood friend and her brother’s best friend, Graham Hawksbury, the Earl of Otley. Even though Graham has always fancied Rox, she is wary of him, given his reputation as a rake. This is not helped by the addition of his daughter, a baby girl, delivered by his former mistress and now left on his doorstep to raise.

There is a mystery to solve in the sudden and mysterious death of both Arthur’s and Roxanne’s parents who were on their way to India. Also suspicious is Crenshaw, a new businessman hoping to do business with Graham and Arthur. It was one of his ships her parents were on when they perished at sea. Crenshaw was seen wearing the duke’s ring by Graham, which was lost at sea. The mystery was left unsolved, and I am sure will be taken up in the next book. I took a while to finish this book as I did not find it that interesting.

I received an ARC from Dragonblade Publishing and NetGalley and submit my honest review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dragonblade publishing for a chance to read this book. Another one by Dragonblade i am hoping i will be auto approved soon because most of my reads are from Dragonblade lately and I am not complaining. This was another story that hit it out of the park for me.
If you enjoy
Tropes / Themes:
Victorian Historical Romance
Friends to Lovers
Widow Heroine
Reformed Rake
Second Chance at Love
Nobleman/Noblewoman Romance
Forbidden (or Secret) Longing
Slow-Burn Romance
Emotional Healing from a Past Marriage

Forbidden trope got me interested and the cover was just beautiful. I mean what could be better about falling for a friend and finding feelings that were not there before. It was a good story to read for Victorian Historical Romance lovers. I recommend this.

I hated what happened with her son. It was very dramatic and felt like a huge deal but it was just a plot point that occurred and was moved on from which is how I felt about several plot points. And I was traumatized.

But I also did not get the FMC. I felt confused by her. An example of this is she was like I’m not looking for marriage but I’m courting the MMC. What? I find it hard to that there was casual dating at this time.


But she real is kind of mean when she talks about him. Again I don’t get why she wants to court him. She does think well of him and she doesn’t even want to think of marriage. Why isn’t this an affair?

Very entertaining. I read a ton of these types of stories, and sometimes they start to feel too similar. This one didn't feel that way I was very entertained. This story has everything. Delightful characters that carry the reader along. Trials are abundant, both physical and mental, and couple of bad guys get their comuppin’s. Great read!

Beauty and the Rake is my first book by J.R. Salisbury and the first in the Endless Love Series. The synopsis sounded interesting to me but sadly the execution didn't work for me.

Roxanne's feelings toward Graham felt all over the place, and because of that, I had a hard time connecting with her. She came across as a bit inconsistent and not especially likeable, which made it difficult to get fully invested in the romance.

The pacing of the book was uneven. Some parts dragged, while others felt rushed. I also found the dialogue a bit jarring. The way the characters spoke felt very modern for something set in the Victorian era, which made it hard to stay immersed in the story.

Beauty and the Rake and JR Salisbury was a first read for me. The story and story line was very interesting and, i felt, had a lot of different components going on. At times the text just didn't move smoothly and came across choppy. With that being said, I will look for other works by this author and compare. Free ARC for honest review from NetGalley.

I am finding it difficult to express myself in this review because I love the main characters, but the plethora of descriptive text left me feeling frustrated. I kept waiting for the axe to fall, but nothing happened. It is a bit like those falling dreams, where you are going down, down, down, and just before the bump, you wake up. The novel also closed on a bit of a cliff-hanger, although Graham and Roxanne do get their happy ending. I received a copy of this book as a gift through Dragonblade Publishing and NetGalley, and this is my honest and voluntary review.

⭐½ – Just Didn’t Work for Me

Thank you to NetGalley and Dragonblade for this e-arc for an honest review. Beauty and the Rake had all the makings of a typical Regency, vintage romance—which I usually enjoy—but this one just didn’t land.

The plot felt all over the place, jumping from one dramatic twist to another without much cohesion or emotional buildup. I kept waiting for the story to settle into something more grounded or compelling, but it never really found its footing. The characters felt underdeveloped, and their interactions lacked the chemistry or depth that would have made the romance believable or engaging. The FMC was kind of annoying with how she ended up with the MMC. I guess the only thing redeeming was that the FMC’s brother stuck by his sister and helped her with what she’s going through in life.

There was one specific scene toward the end that stood out—it really reminded me of the pall-mall game in Bridgerton. It had a fun, light energy that I wish the rest of the book had leaned into more. Unfortunately, it was a brief moment in an otherwise scattered narrative.

I wanted to like this, and I appreciate what the author was going for, but in the end, it just didn’t work for me.

This is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The characters just don't seem to meld well together given the main female being a bit more antagonizing than necessary. There were several sub plots but no true depth or resolution to them. The story felt a bit choppy in places instead of a smooth transition from one discussion to another. I enjoyed the overall story and fully understand that my opinion is just that, an opinion. I would still fully recommend that others read this story as well and make their own opinions rather than take mine and miss out on something they may find extremely entertaining and enjoyable.

A jaded widow. A notorious rake. Childhood crushes reignite—but can love bloom amid betrayal, societal scorn, and a past that won’t stay buried?

Beauty and the Rake is the first book of the Endless Love series. 

Overview

Lady Roxanne finds herself a relatively young widow. Her marriage to her much older husband wasn’t a happy one. Now with him gone, her stepson has taken over and only gives her a small townhouse in the bad part of town and only 100 pounds a year! Luckily, her brother has arrived and taken her to their childhood home to stay. Soon, she is reunited with her brother's best friend, Graham Hawksbury.  

Slowly, feelings begin to develop between the widow and the well-known rake. Both had harbored crushes for each other as children. Now that destiny has brought them together again, can they finally make it work? Even with their baggage getting in the way?

Positives 

I know this author strives to have imperfect but strong female leads, and she nails it with Beauty and the Rake. Roxanne has been there and done that. Who cares what society thinks? She’s survived. 

We also get to see some uncommon characteristics. I’ve never encountered any historical fiction that covers conditions like what we now call autism spectrum disorder. It’s good that we highlight the good and the bad in our history, or we never learn. 

Negatives

I had an issue with the flow. There were times where the author was overly descriptive with mundane tasks, but during what should have been emotional conversations, the descriptions of body language and such were non-existent. 

It doesn’t help that certain events don’t seem to support the plot and are just there to fill a narrative requirement. The ASD mention is what comes to mind. If you remove that entire event, it doesn’t affect the plot. It's sad because it could have been expanded to play a bigger role in enhancing Roxanne's character arc. 

Recommendations

Unfortunately, Beauty and the Rake only gets two stars from me. I feel like the author was more focused on trying to set up the series plot than on Roxanne and Graham's romance. There was so much potential, but it fell short for me.

I realy tried to like the heroine at first! Lady Roxanne is the sister of a Duke and a Dowager Countess. Her husband left her one of his mistress homes and a pittance to live off of! But her brother came and moved her in the family home! Survival of hardship and a bad marriage should mage a person more grateful umm nope!
At one point you feel sorry for Roxanne as she grieves over an unexpected loss but that too is short lived!
Graham aka the Earl of Otley and her brothers best friend and a childhood friend to both is why and how I was able to finish this book!
It has some good bones but there are several subplots and at times it was all over the place! All in all there is a HEA!

This book was interesting and I had mixed feelings about it and the main female character (MFC). She was so contradictory. I wanted to love her and feel empathy for her situation in the beginning, but the energy of the character changed drastically. She became difficult and borderline rude, especially with the main male character (MMC). He clearly had feelings for her, but she was just mean to him and spoke negatively about him to’ others as her internal thoughts revealed that she had always loved him since childhood. They did eventually find their HEA, and it was nice that it didn’t take forever to get there and be able to experience part of the happy union within the story. However, there were several things mentioned that I thought would have more significance only for them to be left hanging and unexplored. They were several side plots developing that weren’t fully developed. There was a lot of repetitions and scenes that didn’t flow well and could be confusing at times. However, I do always enjoy a love story. If you enjoy a second chance, brother’s best friend, he admits to falling first, steamy, potential villain, with a mystery and huge cliffhanger romance, this is a book you may enjoy.

I received an ARC from Net Galley and am voluntarily leaving this review. I do enjoy getting to read more from different authors.

I have to say, I enjoy good books….and this is not one of them. There was SO.MUCH.DETAIL as to what the characters were doing or eating, or writing, etc, that I got bored. Roxanne is hard to like with a hard shell no one seemed to crack. Maybe it was her first marriage , but the way she treated Graham made me wonder if he enjoyed being belittled so much. Arthur was a stand-up guy and I loved how he protected her. The (very)little exciting things to happen were so glossed over, it was hard to feel any emotion at all. If the author was trying to create some sort of trilogy, this story could have been written into the second book. Leaving a cliff hanger may not even convince me to read the second story. Even Roxanne’s loss seemed so glossed over, it made me wonder why it was even written in, except to get rid of the character that was never really in the story to begin with. There was no real emotion to this story, no real excitement. The love scenes seemed just gratuitous storyline to make the story more palpable .
Wasn’t a fan

I received this story for free and these are my own views.

Graham
✅ reformed rake
✅ brother’s best friend

Roxanne
✅ widow
✅ grieving/ mourning
✅ trauma past relationship

✅ childhood crush
✅ second chance love
✅ slow burn
✅ forbidden
✅ friends to lover
✅ plenty of spicy scenes :🔥🔥🔥

This book is almost everything i expected it to be. She is a strong, hard working woman who has found her chance to be free. The only problem i found with this book is that the mmc seems to like her more as a friend that anything. He doesnt show his love to her as much as i would like him to. Even tho the tension from their past friendship is still visible, at times i saw them pretty immature as if they hadnt learned anything from the past.

Not the book for me. The FMC was just a bit all over the place with her feelings towards the MMC and came across as not very likeable. The pacing of the book is very uneven and I also found the dialogue quite jarring. The characters spoke in a very modern way considering it's supposed to be set in the Victorian period which just didn't feel believable to me and stopped me really getting absorbed in the book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dragonblade Publishing for this ARC.

Roxanne was in a difficult marriage and when her husband died, she was finally free.
She returns to her brothers home and meets up again with his best friend Graham.
They are attracted to each other.
Tangled storylines with twists involving her parents, a baby, and love.
Reading did not flow easily nor did their reconnection.
Threads of the story were left hanging until perhaps the next book.

I think this book just wasn’t the book for me. I found the heroine, Roxanne, to be fickle and prickly and she came across as unfeeling. One moment she’s friendly towards Graham, the next she snaps at him or is condescending or judgmental without reason. She calls him arrogant and infuriating for the simplest things, even when I feel he tried to show compassion or just shares his opinion. I don’t think he deserved that. So their relationship changing from Graham being her brother’s friend to becoming Roxanne’s lover/husband felt abrupt and sudden. I would have liked a more realistic development from being friends which progressed into a relationship.
There is also drama which felt added for the sake of drama; especially the whole issue with Thomas, but also the baby and even the horse dying. It felt forced to me and just quite sad without adding to the story. I would have liked more focus on character development and, as I’ve said, developing the romance between Graham and Roxanne.
I did like Arthur, Roxanne’s brother. He’s a jovial and kind man, easygoing and caring.
There is also a bit of a mystery with the unexplained death of Roxanne and Arthur’s parents, but that’s primarily addressed in the final chapters and not resolved in this book.
Content 411: There are a few graphic sexually intimate scenes that might offend readers. I think the story would have been fine without it.
Maybe others will like to book better but I world have liked more fun, banter and depth.
I received an advance review copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I dnf at 31%

Firstly this book needs a major trigger warning which it did not have. A main character losing a child needs one.

This books is based in Britain but is riddled with Americanisms. Such as the facts that we do not refer to female friends as girlfriends. Among others.

And I have never heard of the Isle of Wight referred to as Wight.

There wasn't any research done on journeys. The isle of wight is an island. They got off it via train (not they didn't). Then getting into Mayfair from the train they had to change the horses to do so. This is a journey which would take less then an hour in traffic. You don't need to change the horses. For that.