Title: How to Catch a Wicked Viscount by Amy Rose Bennett
Disreputable Debutantes Series Book One
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Historical, Romance
Length: 319 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through First to Read
Summary:
A young lady’s tarnished reputation might cost her everything in this first book in the Disreputable Debutantes series.
Shy, bookish Sophie Brightwell is expected to make an advantageous match to improve her family’s fortunes. However, Sophie’s plans to make a spectacular debut go horribly awry when she and her three closest friends are expelled from a young ladies’ academy for unbecoming conduct. Since the ton will be sure to close their doors on these disgraced debutantes, they determine that unconventional means need to be employed in the husband-hunting market. Rakehells—the beau monde’s wickedest members—might be the only men willing to overlook a young lady’s besmirched reputation.
But how does one catch a rake?
Nate Hastings, the devil-may-care Viscount Malverne, is the older brother of Sophie’s best friend, fellow disgraced debutante Lady Charlotte. When a terribly foxed Nate accidentally compromises Sophie, Charlotte strikes a wicked bargain: in order to avoid a scandal and the parson’s mousetrap, Nate must help Sophie snare a husband. But as Nate fulfills his obligation and begins to instruct the lovely Sophie in the art of luring rakes, he soon finds himself battling his own fierce attraction to her.
Review:
Set in 1818, How to Catch a Wicked Viscount by Amy Rose Bennett is a light-hearted and delectably steamy historical romance.
Three years earlier, Sophie Brightwell and three of her friends are expelled from a ladies’ school when they are caught drinking brandy, smoking cheroots and reading a risque novel. Sophie returns home to her stepfather’s impoverished farm where she is in danger of being married off to a reprehensible baron in order to erase the family debt. She is offered an unlikely reprieve when one of her friends, Lady Charlotte “Charlie” Hastings invites her to London for the season. Both Sophie and Charlie are hoping for an advantageous match but the rumor mill has yet to forget their previous disgraceful antics.
Charlie’s brother Nate, Viscount Malverne, becomes the young women’s unlikely escort after he is caught in a particularly compromising situation. Nate and his best friends have been trying to out drink, out gamble and out womanize their wartime demons for quite some time. With his and Charlie’s father finally out of patience, Nate is under strict orders to put his rakehell shenanigans behind him and take his responsibilities seriously. Which means he is also living under the family roof at the same time Sophie is in London.
Forced to spend time in each other’s company, Sophie has convinced Nate to teach her how to ensnare a husband. Nate is a reluctant instructor in the arts of flirting and kissing. The more time the two spend together, Nate’s and Sophie’s unexpected attraction begins to burn hotter. Sophie is also beginning to fall in love with her best friend’s brother but she is under no illusion that he will ask for her hand in marriage. When a suitor begins earnestly pursuing Sophie, will Nate admit his growing feelings for her?
How to Catch a Wicked Viscount is an absolutely charming Regency romance. The characters are well developed and quite endearing. The novel is fast-paced with an engaging storyline. The relationship between Nate and Sophie is laced with sexual tension which results in some very steamy scenes between them. With the fate of their romance hanging in the balance, Amy Rose Bennett brings this entertaining first installment of the Disreputable Debutantes series to an swoon-worthy, sigh-inducing conclusion. I highly recommend this marvelous historical romance to fans of the genre.
