Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake: Book Review

I grabbed this right after reading Game of Rogues, and maybe that was my mistake. It was a rainy afternoon, perfect for some cozy reading, and I wanted to recreate the magic of Gabriel and Ginny, so I picked this next. I’ve heard great things and even though I disliked the previous Sarah MacLean book I read, I believed this one might be for me. 

Unfortunately, it was not. 

Verdict: Again, maybe I shouldn’t have picked this up immediately (minutes) after finishing Game of Rogues which was brilliant. I can see how this can be a fun, silly time, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite strike me as all that interesting. I kept waiting for it to be over, and that’s never a good sign. Give it a try if it seems like it might be your jam, but I was not impressed. This is my second Sarah MacLean, and though I’ll give her books more chances, I fear she, much like Lisa Kleypas, just might not be for me. 

What is this book about?

Callie is a rich but plain spinster who’s been on the shelf for the past decade, pining after the most notorious rake, Duke of Ralston. But, her sister’s impending wedding spurs her on to have a bit of adventure, and she enlists the Duke to help. Luckily, he needs a favor too, as he just found out he has a half-sister and he needs someone reputable to introduce her to society. They make a deal and seal it with a kiss which stirs both of their feelings to life. And from then on, through both their missions, they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. 

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake Review

The premise works well enough. The wallflower spinster wants to live her life freely and so she creates a list. She enlists the help of the most notorious rake (whom she’s also been in love with for a decade, for no discernible reason), and luckily he needs her help too because a half-sister of dubious heritage has showed up at his doorstep, and he needs someone respectable to introduce her to London society. 

I was looking forward to seeing the hero — Gabriel St. John, Duke of Ralston — slowly but surely fall for the heroine because of her wit, her cunning, her kindness. Because she’s described as plain and plump, it was more likely, logically, that he’d fall for her other qualities before realizing that to him, she is actually beautiful. 

Instead, he starts being attracted to her because she’s… responsive? to his kisses? as if no other woman has ever moaned at him or whatever. What nonsense! And that’s all after their first kiss. This rake, the man who has slept with half of London, never had an experience so passionate as he had with our plain, frumpy heroine Callie. Right, right, right. Plausible. 

And Callie starts out as this sensible, smart woman, but she turns into mush for this mediocre man. First of all, she believes herself plain — fine, many women do. But to allow him to do the things he does (in public!) when both her sister’s and his sister’s lives depend on her good reputation, just because he touches her and her body can’t resist is lunacy. 

He says awful things about her, she overhears, and I hoped beyond hope that she’d turn over a new leaf and start ignoring him, but no — instead, she lets him have his way with her immediately after, no apology, no nothing. After he called her plain and missish and said that he only tolerates her because she’s helping his sister. Really? He should have had to work so hard on himself to win back Callie’s trust after that, but instead she just rolls over and lets him do whatever to her.

Even Mr. Darcy in a book written several hundred years ago, had to atone for a comment much lighter than that. But this dude gets a free pass because what? He’s so handsome it’s impossible to resist him? Ridiculuous! If any man called me plain and missish, I’d never speak to him again, and I certainly wouldn’t find him attractive after that. A thing these authors don’t get is that a man can be objectively good looking and also unattractive to a woman because he’s rude and mean.

But the biggest sin here is that we don’t really get to understand this Duke. The POVs from him are so few and far between, you don’t really see him falling love, you don’t see him angsting over her or realizing what he feels. Sure, you see Callie do all these things, but I feel like Ralston is this prop put there to fall for her without reason or logic. 

Other books do this, of course, they have rakes who fall for plain heroines and find them irresistible but we get to see why that is. This book doesn’t bother to show you that, it just happens somewhere in the background of it all. 

Callie is no better. She’s been attracted to this man for a decade while simultaneously knowing that he sleeps around. Me, personally, I would have icked out of that sooner rather than later, but she remains steadfast in her admiration. And for no reason at all (he does nothing worthwhile) she falls for him, just like that. 

Don’t get me started on this hare-brained scheme she has, these things she wants to do. On the surface, perfectly fine — she wants to drink, smoke, gamble, shoot, fence, ride a horse properly, etc. Fine, great! But the way she chooses to go about it is entirely stupid. Instead of drinking in her own home, she wants to go to a tavern which is 1) completely unsafe and 2) just why? What difference does it make? 

Then she wants to fence, and instead of asking, you know, her supportive brother to help her do that, maybe in the backyard or in their big ballroom or somewhere private like that, she decides to secretly go to the fencing club dressed as a man. This woman who is described as looking very much like a woman with, you know, hips and breasts and curves, she manages to sneak in dressed as a man in a time when men wore very tight breeches and tailored clothing. Cool cool cool no doubt no doubt. 

And she doesn’t even fence all that much. It mere minutes, guess who finds her there and then guess what they do? (in a room anyone could come into, no less)

She wants to go gambling, so instead of doing it at home, she wants to go to a gentlemen’s club where she can be easily spotted and ruined. And then you know what she does there? She sleeps with a man for the first time, with all the screaming (apparently) that entails. Her disguise? A great big coat! How marvelous!

I very much dislike this author’s insistence on shoving modern versions of feminism into places where it doesn’t belong. Yes, we know it’s awful that there were places women couldn’t go and things women couldn’t do, obviously that’s bad. But having a woman whose safety and livelihood depend on not going to those places and not doing those things actually risk her life for a bit of adventure is just senseless.

It’s also very reductive and kind of ignorant of what the world was like. She even says at one point that brown wool is freedom, implying that women who are not in the ton are free and she’s not. When she’s pampered and rich and all she has to do is go to balls and teas and operas. Meanwhile there are women working hard and being in danger constantly because of their low social status. Come on! 

At another point, she says a courtesan is more free than her and she envies her and wants to be a mistress to someone. What a horrible thing to say! Those women were anything but free, but of course, this author once again applies modern sensibilities regarding sexual freedom to a historical romance in a way that doesn’t work. 

And it’s not like Callie’s never been proposed to, mind you! It’s just been by men whom she found dull or ugly, or too old. (double standards much?) But you know how she would get her freedom? By marrying one of those old fellows and waiting for them to die. Then she would be a widow, and widows were essentially the most free women of the society then. 

Or, you know what else? She could have waited another year or so at which point she would be moved to the country house and never have to see another ball again. In the country, she would be free to do as she pleases. 

But of course, we pick the worst possible solution, don’t we? We have to go with the most 21st century understanding of feminism without doing any research on what a version of it might look like in Callie’s time. Right.

Also the title makes no sense. Yes, there are nine things on her list, but they’re not rules, and she’s not breaking them. 

Bottom Line

So, overall — bad, bad book. To me, at least. Perhaps it might work for you; I did see many positive reviews being all gooey about Ralston, which is fine, I guess, to each their own. This was severely underdeveloped in some places, overdone in some others. I didn’t find anything that happened here romantic or fun.

Though I did find it funny how, after they sleep together, he’s all like “fine, if I must I’ll marry you” when there’s no need and he’s obviously eager. And I liked his and her brother. So, there, something positive. Give it a try to see if it’s your thing. 

If you liked Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, try…

• The Very Definition of Love by Sophia Benoit (a rake and a wallflower, but it actually makes sense and he actually does the hard work to change and he’s very sweet overall, loves and respects women). 
• Black Silk by Judith Ivory (a rake and a plain widow become friends through their shared grief, and then more; it’s a really slow burn and the book overall is more serious and much better written)
• The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas (he’s not a rake, but is still pretty unattainable for the relatively plain and poor but cunning heroine, such a good book!)
• The Governess Game by Tessa Dare (she’s a governess to his wards, he’s a rake who has sworn never to marry, but living together is not so easy; this book is so funny!)
• When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein is not quite like this book, but it works as a contemporary romance version of this because it has a similar vibe with the heroine who doesn’t really believe in herself and the football player who was also a player. 
• Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater works as a kind of half-historical romance, half fantasy romance where a plain, unmarriable girl and a handsome courtier fall in love. It’s lovely, but isn’t spicy.