Knockout by Sarah MacLean (Hell’s Belles #3)

From Edelweiss:

New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with the next Hell’s Belles novel about a chaotic bluestocking and the buttoned-up detective enlisted to keep her out of trouble (spoiler: She is the trouble).  

With her headful of wild curls and wilder ideas and an unabashed love of experiments and explosives, society has labeled Lady Imogen Loveless peculiar…and doesn’t know she’s one of the Hell’s Belles—a group of vigilantes operating outside the notice of most of London.

Thomas Peck is not most of London. The brilliant detective fought his way off the streets and into a promising career through sheer force of will and a keen ability to see things others miss, like the fact that Imogen isn’t peculiar…she’s pandemonium. If you ask him, she requires a keeper. When her powerful family discovers her late-night activities, they couldn’t agree more…and they know just the man for the task.

Thomas wants nothing to do with guarding Imogen. He is a grown man with a proper job and no time for the lady’s incendiary chaos, no matter how lushly it is packaged. But some assignments are too explosive to pass up, and the gruff detective is soon caught up in Imogen’s world, full of her bold smiles and burning secrets…and a fiery passion that threatens to consume them both.

Thoughts and prayers for Tommy Peck, right? Every time there’s an explosion, Lady Imogen Loveless seems to turn up. Whether she set the explosion or is investigating it, it doesn’t matter. She’s a thorn – a very attractive thorn – in Detective Inspector Tommy Peck’s side. When Imogen’s heretofore oblivious older brother shows up to decide that, well, she’s too odd and he needs to marry her off, somehow Tommy inveigles himself into the role of bodyguard. (Ha. What’s Moneypenny’s line from The World is Not Enough – bodyguards are in front or behind, never on top? Hahahahaha.)

This is all very inconvenient for Imogen. Bad people are setting explosions at businesses that front for services used by people (often women) in need – networks to get women out of bad marriages, bad employment situations, medical services, abortion providers, and so on – and Tommy, while delightful for practicing her banter on, the attractively stoic man is, unfortunately, another male person getting in her way. And after he’s depicted in the papers “rescuing” her from a collapsing building, a situation that wouldn’t have been necessary at all had the infuriating man listened to her in the first place, well…her “friends” are all more than happy to “help” her to Tommy’s…you know…because that man has been gone for her since she blew up his jail in Bombshell.

And when it looks like a rogue element within Scotland Yard appears to be behind the explosions and Imogen’s life is endangered…#TOMMYGOBOOM.

SO GOOD. No fucking notes. I basically read this in one sitting as soon as the galleys became available on Edelweiss. Pippa from One Good Earl Deserves a Lover is my forever-fave of Sarah MacLean’s science girlies but Imogen Loveless Does. Not. Fuck. Around. (Oh, my god. Can you imagine the Pippa and Imogen meeting? Pippa would be all “we should repeat this experiment, for science” and Imogen would be like “yes, let’s, because more explosions!!” Ahhhh.) And this is also such a good cross-class romance, with shades of Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You (Tommy isn’t of the born-in-a-drain-pipe-to-casino-owner pipeline (ha) hero mold) and Hello, Stranger (but he does work so hard to keep his family off the streets and rise in the newly formed Scotland Yard).

Look, if you watched Miss Scarlet and the Duke and felt cheated that a) not only did they not kiss at all (I quit watching after Season 1 for that reason) but b) that they did not make any sort of creative use of his massive desk, you will want this book (no desk at the Yard, but there is a table at a party and only one bed and also a spectacular role-play/hide-from-the-villains scene in a brothel that is so hot, whew). Also, you’ll want all the luxurious dress fabrics because Imogen’s frocks are so beautifully described. (And the Epilogue – the epilogue, ahhhhhh. So many ways this could go for Duchess’s book.)

Knockout is out today!!!!

Content warnings: all the inherent misogyny that comes with a historical romance set in the nineteenth century as the Victorian period is getting underway, physical threats to women’s lives

Dear FTC: (I can’t believe we still have to do this for books but whatever.) I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. But also had a copy pre-ordered on my nook. And a copy pre-ordered with an indie bookstore so I could have a signed copy.

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner – an Austenprose blog tour!

Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls.

Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager’s unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:

Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiancé was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances–most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction.

Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she’s been working to support the family following her husband’s breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own.

Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she’s working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future.

As they interact with various literary figures of the time–Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others–these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.

BOOK TRAILER

 AUDIOBOOK

Narrated by esteemed stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, enjoy the full unabridged edition of Bloomsbury Girls. “Stevenson delivers the satisfying triumph at the end with perfect polish.” —AudioFile Magazine

AUDIOBOOK EXCERPT

 2020 brought an interesting (albeit fictional) tale about the founding of The Jane Austen Society, aptly titled The Jane Austen Society. Two years later we get Bloomsbury Girls, a little bit of a sequel for one character: Evie Stone, the brilliant housemaid from Chawton house who so carefully catalogued the Great House Library before its auction, is now a young woman and one of the first women to earn a degree from Cambridge. However, in post-war Britain the boys’ club still reigns in academia and Evie is denied an academic position despite her qualifications. She decides to reach out to an acquaintance via a contact from Sotheby’s and begins work cataloging the rare books of Bloomsbury Books in London.

But all is not well in this bookshop. The two female employees of the shop – Vivien and Grace – are relegated to the cash register and secretarial duties, respectively. Never mind that they each have ideas to help bring new customers to the shop or for new stock that might be in demand. It’s the men who take care of those things in yet another boys’ club. And those men are so set in their ways they might as well be carved of granite. When Mr. Dutton suffers a seizure during Evie’s interview and takes a subsequent medical leave, the shakeup in the employee roster sets events in motion that will transform Bloomsbury Books forever.

I quite liked this sort-of sequel to The Jane Austen Society – don’t worry, you can totally read it as a standalone, there’s enough in the text about what happened before to get you through. The real meat of the story is the network that develops between Evie, Vivien, and Grace and spreads outward to encompass a number of real-life characters – Ellen Doubleday, Daphne du Maurier, Peggy Guggenheim, Sonia Brownell (Orwell) – and how they leverage their connections to make change. Because they really do want to burn down the patriarchy. Whether a husband who refuses to get help at home (Grace), being denied an academic position (Evie), or being relegated to the cash register by the very man you slept with who then slut-shamed you (Vivien – yeah, wow, Alec is a real ass at times), they each have their own ways of pushing back against the institution trying to cage them in but it really is only together that they can make The Patriarchy step aside. And they really do make the men step aside, it is great. (I’m going to give some content warnings for things you can expect in post-war Britain: references to PTSD, deaths of characters’ loved ones and grief, domestic violence, mental health.)

Also, if mid-century literature is your jam, this book is a delight with all the books and authors name-checked throughout. Add in one very interesting Lady Browning aka Daphne du Maurier, who is a kick at a literary luncheon, and Samuel Beckett dispensing writing advice and it’s quite fun.

There are a number of romantic pairings in this book. Lord Baskin, the owner of the shop, has a rather sweet pining, very slow developing, affection with Grace – it’s very #complicated because of cross-class issues and the rather large problem of Grace’s actual husband, but you get the sense at the end that maybe it will work out for these two mid-forties adults. Vivien and Alec are the enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers-to-blood feud enemies-to-friends (?) pairing where all their barriers to being civil are basically that they’re too similar in personality and that Alec is a prudish dick (he figures this out in the end). Evie strikes up a friendship which turns to a quiet romance with Dr. Ashwin Ramaswamy, a botanist from Madras unable to find a place at the universities in the UK (if you have guessed that the reason is racism, you are correct) and who now heads up the science department at Bloomsbury Books. Evie and Ash are both excellent characters, but this was the romance that didn’t quite connect for me. I kept thinking these two liked each other only because they liked research, and that they were friendly, but didn’t get a sense that they were into each other as people. Maybe I missed something.

Although I read a paper galley, if you are are into audiobooks, this one is read by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson – check out the audiobook sample above!

Bloomsbury Girls is out now! And for more thoughts on the book, read the review at Austenprose.

Dear FTC: I read a paper galley of this book from the publisher because I am participating in the blog tour organized by Laurel Ann at Austenprose. Thanks Laurel Ann!!

PURCHASE LINKS

PRINT & DIGITAL BOOK: AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

AUDIOBOOK: AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS

AUTHOR BIO

Natalie Jenner is the author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller and has been sold for translation in twenty countries. Born in England and raised in Canada, Natalie has been a corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. Visit her website to learn more.

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | GOODREADS

A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

Dear readers, I am immensely grateful for the outpouring of affection that so many of you have expressed for my debut novel The Jane Austen Society and its eight main characters. When I wrote its epilogue (in one go and without ever changing a word), I wanted to give each of Adam, Mimi, Dr. Gray, Adeline, Yardley, Frances, Evie and Andrew the happy Austenesque ending they each deserved. But I could not let go of servant girl Evie Stone, the youngest and only character inspired by real life (my mother, who had to leave school at age fourteen, and my daughter, who does eighteenth-century research for a university professor and his team). Bloomsbury Girlscontinues Evie’s adventures into a 1950s London bookshop where there is a battle of the sexes raging between the male managers and the female staff, who decide to pull together their smarts, connections, and limited resources to take over the shop and make it their own. There are dozens of new characters in Bloomsbury Girls from several different countries, and audiobook narration was going to require a female voice of the highest training and caliber. When I learned that British stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, CBE, had agreed to narrate, I knew that my story could not be in better hands, and I so hope you enjoy reading or listening to it. Warmest regards, Natalie

Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron by Julia Quinn, illustrated by Violet Charles

Summary from Goodreads: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn comes this irresistible treat, a charming and jaunty graphic novel, based on story snippets peppered throughout a number of her books. Originally mentioned in It’s in His Kiss—one of the Bridgerton novels which inspired the smash Netflix series, Bridgerton—Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron is finally told here in its entirety for the first time.

A madcap romantic adventure, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron has appeared in several Julia Quinn novels and enthralled some of her most beloved characters. Now, this delicious tale of love and peril is available for everyone to enjoy in this wonderfully unconventional graphic novel.

Born into a happy family that is tragically ravaged by smallpox, Miss Priscilla Butterworth uses her wits to survive a series of outlandish trials. Cruelly separated from her beloved mother and grandmother, the young girl is sent to live with a callous aunt who forces her to work for her keep. Eventually, the clever and tenderhearted Miss Butterworth makes her escape… a daring journey into the unknown that unexpectedly leads her to the “mad” baron and a lifetime of love. Delightfully illustrated by Violet Charles, told in Julia Quinn’s playful voice, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron is a high-spirited nineteenth-century romp that will entertain and enchant modern readers.

I think Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron is going to be a very different graphic novel from what people are generally going to expect. I think those of us who’ve read enough Julia Quinn books to know what Miss Butterworth is (smallpox! mad pigeons! wild boars! vile relatives! coincidences! dastardly cousins!) will expect what is basically the Monty Python version of a Gothic novel/Northanger Abbey/Murder She Wrote mashup and we’ll get it. It is goofily delightful. However, I think the average reader who just picks this up on a whim because they’ve heard or watched the Bridgerton show but not read a lot of Quinn’s backlist is going to be very much “WTF?” (Heads up for a lot of in-panel character deaths)

I loved the art style, all youthful pastels. So sad that Violet is gone.

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book from my store.

Devil’s Daughter by Lisa Kleypas, read by Mary Jane Wells (The Ravenels #5/The Ravenels Meet the Wallflowers #2)

Summary from Goodreads: Although beautiful young widow Phoebe, Lady Clare, has never met West Ravenel, she knows one thing for certain: he’s a mean, rotten bully. Back in boarding school, he made her late husband’s life a misery, and she’ll never forgive him for it. But when Phoebe attends a family wedding, she encounters a dashing and impossibly charming stranger who sends a fire-and-ice jolt of attraction through her. And then he introduces himself…as none other than West Ravenel.

West is a man with a tarnished past. No apologies, no excuses. However, from the moment he meets Phoebe, West is consumed by irresistible desire…not to mention the bitter awareness that a woman like her is far out of his reach. What West doesn’t bargain on is that Phoebe is no straitlaced aristocratic lady. She’s the daughter of a strong-willed wallflower who long ago eloped with Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent—the most devilishly wicked rake in England.

Before long, Phoebe sets out to seduce the man who has awakened her fiery nature and shown her unimaginable pleasure. Will their overwhelming passion be enough to overcome the obstacles of the past? Only the devil’s daughter knows…

After reading Hello, Stranger I jumped back for a re-read of Cold-Hearted Rake, because I was having trouble squaring how we got Devon and West. And this was very helpful when reading Devil’s Daughter because now West Ravenel gets his own Happily Ever After with Phoebe, daughter of Sebastian, Duke of Kingston, formerly Devil in Winter, and the widow of Lord Clare.

The competence pr0n exuded by West Ravenel in this book is bananas (even if he is the only person who can’t see it because toxic childhood). I’m not usually a fan of bully romances, but this one really makes it clear fairly early in the book that he knows he did bad and is trying to make amends for how he behaved as a child/teenager. Although, I’m not quite sure this works well for the reader unless you’ve read Cold-Hearted Rake and have seen on-page Soused!West to compare with on-page Competent!West. I also really liked how this was a historical romance with a widow who did not have a traumatic first marriage experience and was happy in it, despite the care and emotional work she did caring for a husband with a terminal illness, and has already considered what she might want in a future marriage. (And there are so many call backs to small moments in Devil in Winter, the shaving scene especially.)

I did today, however, have to sit in the car for about 15 minutes once I’d got to work with the audiobook speed kicked up to 2x because there was only 30 minutes left in the entire book and we’d had our black moment and good Lord how was Lisa Kleypas going to fix this situation? (She fixed it with “Deus Ex Sebastian, Duke of Kingston,” that’s how, oh my god.)

Dear FTC: I borrowed the audiobook from my library via the Libby app.

Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas (The Ravenels #4), read by Mary Jane Wells

Summary from Goodreads:

A woman who defies her time: Dr. Garrett Gibson, the only female physician in England, is as daring and independent as any man—why not take her pleasures like one? Yet she has never been tempted to embark on an affair, until now. Ethan Ransom, a former detective for Scotland Yard, is as gallant as he is secretive, a rumored assassin whose true loyalties are a mystery. For one exhilarating night, they give in to their potent attraction before becoming strangers again.

A man who breaks every rule: As a Ravenel by-blow spurned by his father, Ethan has little interest in polite society, yet he is captivated by the bold and beautiful Garrett. Despite their vow to resist each other after that sublime night, she is soon drawn into his most dangerous assignment yet. When the mission goes wrong, it will take all of Garrett’s skill and courage to save him. As they face the menace of a treacherous government plot, Ethan is willing to take any risk for the love of the most extraordinary woman he’s ever known.

Continuing on my Ravenels read on audio – I really dug this romance between the doctor and the spy from the previous book, Devil in Spring. The medical research Kleypas did for Dr. Gibson – who was practicing at a time when technical advancements in medicine were really starting to jump forward – was excellent. And who could resist Ethan and his sexy Irish brogue? (sorry, Welshman Rhys still wins the sexy accent competition) I loved how they trapped the villain in the end.

A weird note in the audiobook production: Mary Jane Wells is spectacular as usual, but there was an odd moment (in the trainyard, when Garrett is escaping London with Ethan to the Priory) where I would swear the speaker was West Ravenel, who is voiced as a very blustery/jolly-ish English toff, but Rhys’s Welsh accent pops in for about two paragraphs. And he was present earlier in the scene, but I had thought the character left the scene prior to this conversation. I rewound and listened a few times, but I couldn’t figure it out.

The next book in the series is Devil’s Daughter but I’m thinking I might have to pause and jump back to Cold-Hearted Rake because I can’t quite remember how we got to this competent, very capable version of Devon, Lord Trenear.

Dear FTC: I borrowed a copy of this audiobook from the library via Libby.

Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas (The Ravenels #3)

Summary from Goodreads: New York Times bestselling author LISA KLEYPAS delivers the unforgettable tale of a strong-willed beauty who encounters her match in one of London’s most notorious—yet irresistible—rakes . . .

An eccentric wallflower  . . . Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora Ravenel has different plans. The ambitious young beauty would much rather stay at home and plot out her new board game business than take part in the London Season. But one night at a glittering society ball, she’s ensnared in a scandal with a wickedly handsome stranger.

A cynical rake  . . .After years of evading marital traps with ease, Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, has finally been caught by a rebellious girl who couldn’t be less suitable. In fact, she wants nothing to do with him. But Gabriel finds the high-spirited Pandora irresistible. He’ll do whatever it takes to possess her, even if their marriage of convenience turns out to be the devil’s own bargain.

A perilous plot  . . .After succumbing to Gabriel’s skilled and sensuous persuasion, Pandora agrees to become his bride. But soon she discovers that her entrepreneurial endeavors have accidentally involved her in a dangerous conspiracy—and only her husband can keep her safe. As Gabriel protects her from their unknown adversaries, they realize their devil’s bargain may just turn out to be a match made in heaven . . .

Hmmm, I wound up giving Devil in Spring mostly 4 stars for Pandora and 3 stars for Gabriel “I have ‘very weird’ bedroom tastes that run mostly to light bondage and also I’m weirdly patriarchal even though we aren’t that far apart in age” Lord St. Vincent. He’s, um, actually kind of staid? For a supposed rake?

I did like how the Black Moment in this book really turns around an external incident that forces them to confront Gabriel’s Feels rather than turning on whether Pandora can be a good duchess. A missed opportunity in the book – Pandora never had a real conversation with Evie, who was definitely “not considered duchess material” when she basically kidnapped the then-St. Vincent into marriage with her in Devil in Winter – yeah, sorry, not a spoiler since that is basically the first chapter of their book.

But Gabriel did drag the book down for me – he seemed so stodgy and “let me educate you about things” that he came off as behaving older than his own father rather than someone in his late 20s. Also, I get that to most of the Victorian characters anything other than fully-clothed missionary position with the lights off is cause for alarm but Gabriel going on and on about his “dark desires” when really he just likes a bit of variety and a little light bondage or role-play is kind of eye-rolling to a 21st century reader. (Could also have done without the Evil Mistress because it’s literally 3 paragraphs that go exactly nowhere and have no bearing on the outcome of the plot.)

Specific to the audiobook: Mary Jane Wells is a gem. We even get a little bit of her delicious Winterbourne voice when Helen and Winterbourne make an appearance. 

Dear FTC: I do have a copy of this book on my Nook, but I borrowed the audiobook from the library via Libby.

Rake I’d Like to F… by Sierra Simone, Eva Leigh, Nicola Davidson, Adriana Herrera, and Joanna Shupe

Summary from Goodreads: He’s a legend in the raking . . .

The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind – Sierra Simone: Peregrine Hind, known to all as the bloodiest highwayman ever to bedevil the road, seeks only one thing—revenge against the Dartham family. And so when a robbery sends the second Dartham son and notorious rakehell Alexander Dartham tumbling to Peregrine’s feet, it seems like fate has given Peregrine his vengeance at last. Except then Alexander offers him a desperate bargain: to kidnap him instead, so Peregrine can harvest a generous ransom from Alexander’s family first. Peregrine agrees, but he’s in no way prepared for a captive like Alexander, who insists only on the softest beds and the finest wines…and who enjoys being tied up a little too much…

Two Rakes for Mrs. Sparkwell – Eva Leigh: The last thing Mrs. Vivian Sparkwell wants is to tie her life to another stifling husband. But thanks to the surprise terms of her last marriage contract, if she refuses any reasonable offer to wed again, she loses her widow’s portion. What she needs is a thorough and public ruining to make her would-be suitors cry off. Who better to provide the necessary scandal than notorious rake Rushton Cantley? Yet when Rush proposes that his friend, gaming hell bruiser Jack Morgan, join in on the ruination, Vivian can’t decide if she’s shocked—or aroused. How far is too far when infamy is on the line?

A Rake, His Patron, & Their Muse – Nicola Davidson: London playwright and notorious rake Lennox Townsend is renowned for bold melodrama and bolder pleasures. When he loses interest in both, his shy yet devoted patron Lord Jonathan Grant escorts him to a country boarding house managed by repressed widow, Mrs. Viola Prescott. The trio soon surrender to sizzling—and forbidden—passion, made sweeter as each share their deepest secrets and find acceptance of their true self. Yet cold reality is ever ready to intrude, and they know happiness is fleeting. Or is it?

Monsieur X – Adriana Herrera: Joseph Cantor Marshall never imagined reaching the pinnacle of artistic success would be so… uninspiring. Desperate for a spark of excitement he attends the notorious masked soirée at the most exclusive sex club in Paris. The moment he walks in he’s entranced by the mysterious X, the embodiment of the painter’s darkest fantasies. But X is as slippery as he is tempting, and soon Marshall’s days and nights are consumed by growing desire for his elusive lover. Will falling for X prove to be Marshall’s undoing or his greatest masterpiece?

Sold to the Duke – Joanna Shupe: Though she once lived a life of privilege, Lady Eliza is now destitute and desperate to care for her ill sister. She decides to sell the one thing of value she has left: her virginity. At the auction, a shocked Duke of Blackwood recognizes Eliza and refuses to allow her to fall into the clutches of a depraved bidder. But his role of noble rescuer is upended when the proud beauty insists on giving him his money’s worth…

For some reason, I think I liked Duke I’d Like to F… a little better than Rake I’d Like to F… as a whole. It’s all the same authors, all of whose writing I’m familiar with, so it’s not that. Some of the stories felt more rushed in their internal timelines in this volume – “instalust” is always a harder sell for me, and when you make it a throuple/triad or more instead of just two people in the relationship it gets harder for me to buy that everyone is going to have a Happily Ever After after only a few days or weeks. The two novellas I liked best were Adriana Herrera’s and Joanna Shupe’s and both of those had longer elements of time in them and worked really well for me, despite the short nature of a novella format.

It’s all unbelievably sexy of course. Many, many chili peppers. And I can really recommend Adriana Herrera’s contribution, Monsieur X (riffing on the John Singer Sargent “Madame X” painting) which has an unbelievably lush quality to the writing and the evocation of artistic inspiration.

(Apparently, there’s going to be a Villain volume next year…yes please)

Dear FTC: I had a digital galley of this book from the publicist, but got pudding brain and didn’t read it, but I had a copy pre-ordered on my Nook anyway so I read that.

Bombshell by Sarah Maclean, read by Mary Jane Wells (Hell’s Belles #1)

Summary from Goodreads: New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with a blazingly sexy, unapologetically feminist new series, Hell’s Belles, beginning with a bold, bombshell of a heroine, able to dispose of a scoundrel—or seduce one—in a single night.

After years of living as London’s brightest scandal, Lady Sesily Talbot has embraced the reputation and the freedom that comes with the title. No one looks twice when she lures a gentleman into the dark gardens beyond a Mayfair ballroom…and no one realizes those trysts are not what they seem.

No one, that is, but Caleb Calhoun, who has spent years trying not to notice his best friend’s beautiful, brash, brilliant sister. If you ask him, he’s been a saint about it, considering the way she looks at him…and the way she talks to him…and the way she’d felt in his arms during their one ill-advised kiss. Except someone has to keep Sesily from tumbling into trouble during her dangerous late-night escapades, and maybe close proximity is exactly what Caleb needs to get this infuriating, outrageous woman out of his system. But now Caleb is the one in trouble, because he’s fast realizing that Sesily isn’t for forgetting…she’s forever. And forever isn’t something he can risk.

Ok, so I tried to start the galley for Bombshell several times and kept getting frustrated. I think I might have been mad at Caleb – not Sesily, never Sesily, because she’s awesome – and also 2021 was a raging garbage fire and I was mad about a lot of things (still am) and I had very bad pudding brain. However, I finally came up on the hold list for the audiobook, read by the awesome Mary Jane Wells who also reads Marrying Winterbourne and all sorts of other things by Lisa Kleypas, and I just TORE through it this time. So, who knows? Reading brains are weird.

Sesily is a bit like an old friend by now – we met her first in The Rogue Not Taken and the next two Scandal and Scoundrel books (where she barfed on Haven’s boots in The Day of the Duchess – he totally deserved it). It’s several years later and Sesily is part of an awesome, injustice-fighting secret Lady Gang headed up by the Duchess of Trevelyan, rescuing women from bad engagements, abusive husbands, and harassing employers. She’s best friends with the other members of the gang, a con-artist (Adelaide) and a chemist/bomb-maker (Imogen). She’s the “fun Auntie” to her many nieces and nephews. She’s a proper scandal and enjoys it…but the one man she absolutely wants beyond all reason has run all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to stay away from her. Caleb says it’s because she’s his business partner Sera’s sister, but something else must be up.

On the night she has to do some Gang business under cover of the Duchess’s ball, Caleb appears in London. He’s only there because Sera’s going to have another baby and he’ll need to oversee The Singing Sparrow for a while. But then straight back to Boston, do not pass GO, do not think about Sesily Talbot, and don’t even THINK about kissing her in a dark garden let alone actually do that…whoops.

And so begins a back and forth between Sesily and Caleb. Caleb realizes that Sesily is up to something dangerous, underscored by an attack by an unknown group of heavies on the pub Sesily and her friends attend which seems to be part of a larger, coordinated effort to scare off businesses owned by people other than cis, white men (the same group is at work attacking Grace’s establishment in Daring and the Duke). However, Sesily really won’t tell Caleb what she’s up to, because he just keeps sticking his nose in her business and getting in the way. (Sometimes he gets in the way in a very good way…he can make excellent use of a closet and whenever he and Sesily banter until they kiss and then some it is A+. Really, he just keeps showing up because he doesn’t want her to get hurt and she’s Sera’s sister, it’s not like he has feelings for her, squishy warm feelings because those are Very Inconvenient, but wow, does this man want Sesily in all the right ways, despite all his denials.) And it turns out Caleb has a secret of his own, one that could have lethal consequences if made public.

I loved this book. Sesily, Adelaide, Imogen, and Duchess (fyi, not her real name, but Sarah hasn’t given it to us, yet – I envision a Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover reveal at the end of Imogen’s book) are such good characters, warm, witty, sarcastic, supremely intelligent, and loving. The scenes where the four of them are just talking – and maybe giving Sesily shit about Caleb – are the best. And the work that they are doing, to protect vulnerable people in an era where those who were not cis-gendered, heterosexual, upper-class, rich white males had incredibly little institutional power to protect them, is satisfying to read on the page. And if you can get the audiobook, Mary Jane Wells is fantastic, an absolute genius when it comes to accents – her voice as Sesily with that North country accent really brings to the fore Sesily’s determination to rub her scandalous self in the faces of everyone who disapproves of her: she won’t even give them the satisfaction of raising her accent to acceptable ton levels.

I do still think that the narrative remained a little unbalanced – the reader already knew so much about Sesily, she had almost no secrets, but we knew very little about Caleb until later in the book and that threw the character balance off for me. That might have been it. Otherwise, great start to another series.

I’m a little annoyed that we have another book to wait before we get Imogen and Tommy (omg, I think Imogen might be my new favorite? I want her and Pippa to be friends. In the meantime, we can follow the #tommygoboom hashtag with some flash fanfic Jen Prokop makes up about them) but Adelaide and Clayborn ought to be good.

Dear FTC: I started with a digital galley but finished by borrowing the audiobook from my library via Libby (I’ll probably buy one, too).