3.5 stars
CBR13 Bingo: New series
Official book description:
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.
This is another review that will suffer from the fact that I finished the book at the end of August and haven’t had the time and/or brain space to write about it until now. I’ve adjusted down my original rating half a star because it feels like a book as action-packed as this one, I should remember slightly more details about the general plot two months later than I now find myself doing for it to deserve a full four stars.
So what do I remember? Lady Sesily Talbot, who apparently some sections of society anachronistically choose to call Sexily behind her back (I do really like Maclean, at least until a while after I read her books and all my critical faculties kick in again and I start nitpicking – but she’s not exactly the most historically accurate in all aspects writer out there) is the last of the scandalous Talbot sisters to remain unmarried. She has a very strong sense of fair play and justice and has allied herself with a group of other ladies to help women in need, from all stratas of society. Sesily herself is able to use society’s impression of her as a flirt and as a scandal to cause distractions. Her main allies are the rich noblewoman who can use her wealth to fund the group’s endeavours; the “hopeless” spinster wallflower everyone underestimates and the eccentric who cooks up explosives and other useful chemical concoctions to aid the group.
Full review on my blog.
Bingo #5: Rec’d (Teach Me, People (Any Way the Wind Blows), Reader’s Choice (Heartstopper, vol 4), Sports ball (Björnstad), New Series (this)
Bingo #6: Book Club (Meddling Kids), Shelfie (Through the Woods), Rep (Broken (in the Best Possible Way)), New Series (this), Machinery (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)