72 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My first romance novel! And now I'm OBSESSED!, March 30, 2010
This review is from: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake (Mass Market Paperback)
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing A Rake (or 9 Rules for short) is the first ever adult romance novel I have ever read and I think Sarah MacLean may have just led me to a whole new genre to explore! After having read her Young Adult title (and first book), The Season I knew I would read anything else she wrote and this book took my breath away! Coming to 9 Rules from The Season was very natural and just ramped up everything a little bit more. I love that they are both from the same world and time period.
Now it's time for some details. Main character Callie is someone that I could instantly relate to, she isn't as young as the other society girls and has been labeled a spinster and has been almost forgotten about. She realizes that after playing the part society has cast her in she really hasn't had any fun and hasn't gotten anything out of being a good polite woman and so the list is born.
The whole idea of Callie completing a list of basically un-lady like and scandalous tasks is written in a very clever and funny way. Seeing someone try something new is usually always funny and when they have to sneak around in disguises and in the pitch black night it's all the more fun. And add in Ralston and you are very much set!
I loved every single character in this book, pretty much as much as I loved Callie (except for maybe her mother, lol!). From her younger sister Mariana who is engaged, to her older brother Benedick, to Ralston (swoon) and his brother Nick to everyone else. The characters are fabulous. I'm very excited that this is the first of 3 books in this series because I definitely want more where this came from (as if you couldn't tell!).
And the romance, how can I say this politely, it was HOT! (And 2 months later having read a stack of romances, it's still the HOTTEST!) I loved all the back and forth between Callie and Ralston too, the misunderstandings, the stubbornness, the flirting and the silliness it was just adorable! I loved how they would end up hidden in corners, empty hallways and all sorts of places just slightly out of range of the ton, it was dangerous!
I took my time with this book, a week to be exact because I really wanted to enjoy it. I finished it 4 days ago and I haven't really been able to get into anything else since. This book was a complete and absolute treat! RECOMMEND!
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47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a feel-good romance! Better than chocolate., March 31, 2010
This review is from: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake (Mass Market Paperback)
I don't mean to gush, but this was a really lovely romance. Well written, with a very appealing heroine and hero, some really good secondary characters, in particular the twin brother and half sister of the hero, who I imagine will have their own stories eventually. If you try to summarize the story, there's not really that much to it, but it was such fun to read and gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling. 28-year-old Lady Calpurnia Hartwell is plump, plain, on the shelf, and feeling that life is passing her by. She has given up on finding her one true love and decides she just needs to live, really live, and makes up a list of nine things she would like to do, if she could just get up the courage to do them. They are slightly scandalous and could ruin her spotless reputation if she were discovered doing them. Number One on her list is to have a Passionate Kiss and she picks our hero Gabriel St. John, a slightly rakish Marquess, as her kissing partner, since he is the man she has had a secret crush on for ten years. Well, this brings him into her life and his interference and participation in the other eight adventures on her list. He does so because he wants to protect her reputation and keep her from being discovered in the act of pursuing these slightly scandalous activities. Along the way her crush develops into real love and he realizes that this plump and plain woman is really lovely, sexy, bright and exciting to be with. Reading this gives you the same kind of feeling as watching a top-of-the-line romantic comedy like the oldies but goodies, "Sleepless in Seattle", "You've Got Mail", or "While You Were Sleeping". Not similar plots, just that same warm fuzzy feeling.
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, January 30, 2011
This review is from: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake (Mass Market Paperback)
You'll have to forgive me for sounding somewhat irritated in this review...I just finished this book, rather against my will, and have a few bones to pick.
Frankly, I am baffled at the rave reviews this book has been receiving. Though I'll admit it started out with plenty of promise, by the time I got 40% through it got annoying, and by 70% it became nearly unreadable. I frequently wanted to do bodily harm to the heroine, and the hero was so underdeveloped I barely cared whether he got the girl in the end or not. The emotions, especially towards the end, felt contrived and superficial.
This is Sarah Maclean's first adult romance, and it shows - the writing is very amateurish in several places. There is lots of word repetition, as someone else mentioned - there are two instances where the heroine seems to be unable to think of any way to describe her feelings other than "sadness." I believe she uses the word about five or six times in the span of few pages. There's also waaaay more telling than showing. We are told explicitly what each character is feeling and why, especially when it comes to the hero.
I have to agree with the other reviewers who said this book was full of romance novel clichés. The spinster nursing a long-term crush on the emotionally distant rake has been done hundreds of times before, and much more creatively. The book was also rife with Big Misunderstandings, and the kissing and love scenes were full of overused phrases. Although, there was one term, "sweet rain" (I'll let you figure out what that refers to), that I don't think I've ever seen, and it made me burst into giggles every time I saw it.
Here are some of my other issues with the book (may contain very minor spoilers):
1. I just didn't buy that the hero was incapable of love because his mother left him at a young age. I'm not saying it's not a plausible reason to be skeptical of love, or to have problems trusting women, but Maclean really didn't do a great job of selling it. We are told that his mother's abandonment is the reason Ralston is determined not to love, but it's left at that...Ralston very rarely refers back to it, whether in flashback or inner dialogue. It seems like it was just a convenient reason to keep the couple apart until the end.
2. The list of things Callie wanted to accomplish made me dislike her more and more. Not only were the items on it tired Regency clichés, but they demonstrated the heroine's lack of concern for the damage she could inflict on her family's reputation - particularly that of her younger sister - if she were to be caught. As someone who is relatively well acquainted with the time period, it just wasn't believable to me that an aristocratic spinster would threaten her family's honor just for a few cheap thrills. Because Callie does so repeatedly, I couldn't help but see her as selfish and absurd.
3. If Maclean did much research for this book, it didn't show. Though this probably won't bother some people, I adore the Regency and have done extensive reading on the period. It seemed as if Maclean pulled most of her details from other historical romances, or perhaps from quick Google searches. For example, Callie loudly calls Juliana by her first name at a ball, and during a shopping trip on Bond Street, Callie, Juliana, and Mariana take to laughing out loud in public, which would have been considered quite vulgar. There are also several instances of glaringly modern speech that creep into the dialogue, such as "in the romance department," "keep a low profile," and "for the record." Of course, I don't expect historical romances to always be accurate, but the author should at least try.
4. The relationship, too, was terribly underdeveloped. Every time Callie and Ralston were alone, they usually exchanged a few lines of dialogue and then made out for the rest of the scene. They never actually got to know each other very well, and I found myself unable to believe that they knew enough about each other to truly be in love.
5. It was one of those novels where, if the hero and heroine had simply communicated like normal human beings, most of the obstacles between them could have been avoided. Also, for a woman who is supposedly brave enough to do some of the things that Callie does, she is annoyingly insecure. I won't give away too much, but a certain plot contrivance towards the end causes her to blow things way out of proportion and she instantly comes to the conclusion that Ralston's feelings for her are false, despite everything that has occured between them. But of course, they can't talk it out like rational adults...instead, Callie throws a fit and stalks off. Yet bafflingly, Ralston sees this display as a sign of her "newfound strength" and "powerful confidence." What???
To be fair, Maclean does have her moments of cleverness...every now and then I would find myself chuckling. But more often I found myself laughing and rolling my eyes at things that were not meant to be funny. Pit against authors like Loretta Chase and Lisa Kleypas, this book has little to offer a seasoned historical romance reader. It brings nothing new to the table, and merely mimics romance novel tropes that have been done countless times before -- and much more skillfully. Had Callie maintained the fun personality she displayed in the beginning throughout the entire book, that might have been enough to rescue it. Instead, she quickly devolves into a whiny, weepy, tiresome twit.
I skimmed the last portion of the book, just to be able to say I'd finished it. After all, I paid for the darn thing. My advice: if you're convinced by all the high ratings, as I was, and really want to read this, get it used or from the library. In the end, I deeply regretted paying eight bucks for it.
In conclusion: If you're looking for good spinster/rake novels, try "Lord of Scoundrels" by Loretta Chase or "The Devil in Winter" by Lisa Kleypas. Both are vastly superior.
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