Scan barcode
A review by kaitrates
Love Is a Rogue by Lenora Bell
4.0
I fucking love this one! It was a much needed palate cleanser after a series of disappointing-to-me contemporaries. It also facilitated my realization/understanding that the books I'm craving for this season of my life aren't about perfect, pretty people getting their HEA's but about those of us who find ourselves on the sidelines getting ours.
Beatrice was that heroine for me. Injured at birth, it's hinted that she has permanent paralysis on one side of her face. This was part of her story but it wasn’t the only interesting thing about her. It intersected with her journey of coming into her self in that it impacted how others treated her, including her own family, instead of it being the only thing we needed to know. She’s wicked smart, tough as nails, and also just a woman with hopes, Desires, needs, And dreams, living in a world that tried to stop her from having any of that.
One of the things this story did particularly well was highlight how other people's love can teach us how to love ourselves more. Not in a "magic peen" way, where suddenly having sex makes everything better. But in seeing acceptance and love mirrored back at us, an example we might not otherwise have had in our lives.
Neither of them asked the other to change who they fundamentally are, but instead help each other grow into their best selves. These are the stories I want –people with baggage doing the work on their own and in community and partnerships and finding their HEA in that process. Because fuck this whole you need to love yourself first in order to be loved thing. That wasn't the world in Regency England, and it's certainly not the world we live in today.
Lastly, the sexy ends were perfect. Their chemistry belt and belt and belt and Ford was attentive without being overbearing. There isn't an abundance of scenes and they aren't super explicit, but they're done in a way that is better in my opinion than many other books that have more or more explicit ones.
I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series, and more works from Lenora’s other series as well.
Beatrice was that heroine for me. Injured at birth, it's hinted that she has permanent paralysis on one side of her face. This was part of her story but it wasn’t the only interesting thing about her. It intersected with her journey of coming into her self in that it impacted how others treated her, including her own family, instead of it being the only thing we needed to know. She’s wicked smart, tough as nails, and also just a woman with hopes, Desires, needs, And dreams, living in a world that tried to stop her from having any of that.
One of the things this story did particularly well was highlight how other people's love can teach us how to love ourselves more. Not in a "magic peen" way, where suddenly having sex makes everything better. But in seeing acceptance and love mirrored back at us, an example we might not otherwise have had in our lives.
Neither of them asked the other to change who they fundamentally are, but instead help each other grow into their best selves. These are the stories I want –people with baggage doing the work on their own and in community and partnerships and finding their HEA in that process. Because fuck this whole you need to love yourself first in order to be loved thing. That wasn't the world in Regency England, and it's certainly not the world we live in today.
Lastly, the sexy ends were perfect. Their chemistry belt and belt and belt and Ford was attentive without being overbearing. There isn't an abundance of scenes and they aren't super explicit, but they're done in a way that is better in my opinion than many other books that have more or more explicit ones.
I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series, and more works from Lenora’s other series as well.