• Home
  • ABOUT
  • Contact
  • Reviews By Genre
    • Black Romance
    • Contemporary
    • Cowboys & Westerns
    • Erotic
    • Historical
    • New Adult
    • Paranormal
    • Romantic Elements
    • Science Fiction/Fantasy
    • Suspense
  • Reviews by Theme
    • Celebrities
    • Harlequin Category
    • Holiday
    • LGBTQIA
    • Low Heat
    • Millionaires & Billionaires
    • Motorcycle Club
    • Multicultural
      • Black
      • East Asian
      • South Asian
      • Latinx
      • Interracial
    • Novellas & Anthologies
    • Royalty
    • Small Town
    • Sports
  • Reviews By Trope

Romance and Sensibility

From First Page To HEA

3.5 stars, Historical, Review

Sweetest Scoundrel by Elizabeth Hoyt (Maiden Lane #9)

January 27, 2020 Leave a Comment

Rating:★★★+.5 | 328 pages | Hachette | Historical Fiction| Release Date: 11/24/15

Every year I make a goal to read my shelf and I started off 2020 with Sweetest Scoundrel, a book that has been sitting on my shelf for 5 YEARS! It came in a Fresh Fiction box subscription and I’ve just been holding on to it.

Eve Dinwoody, the bastard half-sister of the villainous Duke of Montgomery, takes her job managing her brother’s funds seriously. When she notices the outrageous spending of Asa Makepeace, the owner of Harte’s Folly pleasure garden, she decides to camp out there to do the bookkeeping herself. Eve’s always lived a quiet life of solitude but soon she can’t help but develop feelings for the rakish theater owner and his larger than life world.

Sweetest Scoundrel ticks of some standard historical romance tropes but Hoyt heaps on her particular brand of angst. Seriously, this book has everything; fatal theater sabotage, multiple undercover spies, a runaway-slave-turned-bodyguard and a Jeffrey Epstein style sex ring. I feel like all of the melodrama is Hoyt’s brand and I’ve come to expect it but sometimes it’s so much that it’s hard to take it all seriously.

The sensual, slow burn romance between Eve and Asa was full of undeniable chemistry. I liked that neither of them were titled and that Eve wasn’t traditionally beautiful. It was also a nice subversion that Asa was the one who had to learn about work/life and sacrificing for Eve.

I read Maiden Lane #7 a few years ago and the world of this series feels very connected. While the romance in Sweetest Scoundrel ends in an HEA, there are other parts of the plot that end on a literal cliffhanger. Since I already have two under my belt, my plan for 2020 is to go back and read this series from the beginning so I can get the whole picture.

Currently Reading

Kat
Jess

A spin-off of Books and Sensibility, this blog was created in 2015 to talk exclusively about romance novels--From the first page to HEA !

Follow Us on Bloglovin’

Follow

Subscribe !

Reviews By Rating

  • 1 Star
  • 2 Star
  • 3 Star
  • 4 Star
  • 5 Star
  • Unrated

Search

Book Blog

Blog Archive

Abou

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
@romanceandsensibility

I came across this trope a lot this year -Kat #spicybooks #booktok

♬ Still Into You Drill - ShoBeatz

Social Slider

  • Time for a cover reveal! Wall Street Journal bestselling author @kennedyryan1 is excited to reveal the gorgeous special edition paperback
  • The small town of Honey Hill isn’t big enough to handle the feud between Mayor Lunden Pierce and Quade Cannon—-the
  • Picked this up on a trip to 2nd & Charles . Can’t wait to dive into this series - J
  • Welcome to the snack / book pairing challenge! To enter, tell me what snack you are pairing with your current
  • Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you’re joining us tomorrow for the Black Friday Readathon. You can still sign up using the
  • I’m ready for the Black Friday Readathon! If you want to join us and read all day on Black Friday
  • It
  • It
Design by SkyandStars.co

Copyright © 2023