the_rabble's reviews
131 reviews

Dress designer raised by scam artists pursues man-of-leisure duke to give him a hard pitch on dressing his long distance kinda sorta fiancé-to-be. He unexpectedly pursues her back.

3 POVs, 3rd person past tense, 1830s high society/fashion romance, Paris & London, medium-low spice, mole mystery subplot, MCs mid to late 20s.

Pacing can lag in the back half, but I burned through the first half. It has similar pacing vibes to Chase's A Duke in Shining Armor.

Our girl has some business boy energy- she's doing things "for business" because "it's just business" a lot. This usually rings true to character, but there's a few moments it's a little much.

Her background is super interesting and her relationship with her family is an excellent push-pull internal motivator.

Idk why I thought the Dressmakers series wouldn't be super fashiony, but for what it's worth, this book is super fashiony. 

Our duke is pretty chill and Chase does a good job of showing someone's feelings and point of view without him necessarily having both hands around why he just did that thing.

Sex scenes - if you have an outfit kink or love an undressing scene, this is the one for you. 

Narrator - it's a Kate Reading performance and she's so consistently solid you know what you're in for. 

Love and vengeance! Spy vs vigilante.

This has a lot of "secret society from Maiden Lane's Duke of Sin" energy.

Byrne fucking nails a plot, but her style and pacing is rough. There's also a lot of "MAN IS JUST AN ANIMAL"/predatorpredatorpredator vibes. Emotional beats are there, but idk if she sticks the landing (ending is abrupt.)

Frank/Francesca rules. All of the Red Rogues have been compelling protagonists (with meh-ish dudes.) She is super cool and interesting... but with some unexpected yandere vibes. She has a fun relationship with the men her buddies love and I didn't expect that and would like to see more of it.

Kind of a backdoor redemption for Ramsey.

Chandler starts strong and gets a little muddled.  My dude interupts like a sonuvabitch.

Byrne's been trying to write fight scenes for a while and finally nails some hand-to-hand scenes in this one.

2 POVs, 3rd person past tense, 1890s London, MCs are late 20s early 30s, spicy, action romance conspiracy 

Man of leisure meets pretty heiress - he's a softboy, she's more than a pretty face.

Siblings of the main characters in the last book. I may have had more fun with this story.

Fun plot, lots of good emotional beats. Gina was a very fun POV in Scandalous Heiress and I'm glad she got her own story.

2 POVs, 3rd person past tense, novella, MCs are 19 and 21. Spicy.

Sex Scenes - really interesting and good use of sex scenes in this one. I forgot how rock solid Heath is for a sex scene, especially when it's a little different.

Mathematician inherits property that immediately puts her at odds with the judge who's spent the last year thirsting after her.

This is a tough one. One protagonist is the type of woman I want to spend a lot of time reading about (smart, kind, owns being soft, gets upset but stands her ground - total cinnamon roll) and the other - after being introduced as pretty normal in other parts of the series - just fully hates women and the poors. It's a real hot and cold experience.

Interesting plot, romance beats are well paced- it's really just hard to believe this guy wouldn't go full incel. He's got so many red flags. 🤣 [ending]

Including "You're not like other women," and "well now that I have a daughter I support women's education."

He's likeable when he's not monologuing like a member of the Proud Boys who just saw someone knitting something pink. It can be a lot.

On the other hand the plot includes code breaking, mole hunting, and murder attempts. So there's stuff to get interested in.

Sex Scenes - these felt a little weird. The action beats were fine and pretty basic, but there was a lot of "savage warrior Scot" language that felt very fetishizing of someone's heritage in a way that came out of nowhere. I kinda spaced out until it became less "predator" "savage" "brut" "Scottish warrior."

Narrator - Derek Perkins has a solid performance. There's a lot of accent switching in this one- including an American- and he does a good job.

Optimistic animal rescuer is kidnapped by cold-blooded amnesiac

This one's a banger and resolves a lot of the series' emotional themes.

Multiple POVs, 3rd person past tense, gritty Victorian era romance, medium spice, time jump, MCs are mid to late 30s

Prose is still a little edgelordy at times but the characters are given a lot of space to do act and feel. Lorelei starts really, really strong and the Rook unfurls throughout the book. They don't discuss what happened during the timejump, which feels odd, but there's a fun pirate story. It's a solid vengeance book. [Immediately after timejump]

A villain gets it early in a memorable way.

You can see Byrne starting to get a rhythm and develop as an author.

[Plot + relationship 90%]

It is one more Byrne book where we get a harrowing or life threatening situation that spurs one protagonist who "CAN'T LOVE BECAUSE HE'S SO BROKEN AND FEELINGS ARE SO HARD AND BAD AND WEAK" to realize they love the other protagonist because they almost saw them die.

[Ending]

Then they have sex and the book's over. Byrne's done this in 3 of the 4 other books of hers I've read. (Drama -> Attempted Murder -> ILY -> Sex -> "The End.") I guess the formula works, it just feels like the resolution on the "I CAN'T LOVE" drum these dudes bang gets weirdly rushed and we get a line of love dialogue instead of "oh yeah, I was shitty, I should fix that." We are forced to spend so many pages on that thread for "well, I guess if someone kills her, I'd be sad," to be the resolution.

As a style choice throughout this series to show how brutal these dudes are, Byrne uses otherizing language that feels weird in the historical context bc it was a tool of the colonizing entities at the time (stuff like "savage" or "inhuman" and calling them all different predatory animals.)

Sex scenes: nothing fancy, but well done. There is a closed door voyeur scene with a side character in a non main character POV that may have been the most interesting encounter.

Read Order: I think you could read Book 1, 2 and this one without missing too much. There's some cameoing and threads from the others, but 1 & 2 will get you the main beats.

Bird Nerd Gripes: A rook is not a raven. They're both black feathered corvids, but rooks are their own thing. They've got these dope bare spots by their grey beaks that make their beaks look pale and long.

Spy negs his way through life while looking for his one night stand partner- a waitress he thinks is a sex worker. She's dealing with plenty of her own shit and he makes her life harder.

Byrne does the "I'm such a dick and a monster but I'll protect you but never love you but I guess I love you and also I'm very tall with a prose animal totem, dangerous vibe, murder background, and remember, I'm so angsty" dudes every time, so you know what you're getting into. Usually the "I'm a dick" part is mitigated at some point. Usually.

I feel like she set that up for Cole, but it didn't land.

Promise of the premise (spy stuff  and mistaken identity) and a murder mystery keep you locked in, so I finished. But man, you really want to like everyone and there are a few narrative choices that make it hard. Side characters are great.

3 POVs (2 MCs and a detective), 3rd person past tense, gritty romance, spicy (including dubious and coerced consent scenarios 😬), 1870s, MCs are in their mid to late 20s, takes place over 3 years.

The romantic pacing is not great. This has a lot of "entitled wealthy conservative seduces poor liberal" energy, and there's a strong ick factor bc of it. Cole would be a lot more likeable if he didn't hardcore hate the poor.

I don't get the romance here. Everyone is doing interesting things, but the non-platonic interactions between the protagonists are hostile or kinda gnarly. One protagonist [plot overview]

coerces the other into sex work- she's a first timer, insults how her face looks while throwing dishes at her after someone says, "yeah, she saved your life," gets her fired, loudly cites Machiavelli and trickle down as a reason to not help brutalized poor women, calls the other protagonist and her staff rats in front of potential donors, tries to physically intimidate her by fake choking her,  takes advantage of her while she's drunk, breaks into her house, rage-bangs her then picks a fight... and then is mad that while waitressing in a brothel, she didn't use her real name.

And that's bad. But all his shit is just how the world works bc "people are animals." (His super favorite motto you'll hear one million times.)

Imogen is pretty likeable, but I do not understand why she has any interest in this dude. When he doesn't spend time hating the poor Cole is also interesting, but man, does he lean into being a self-absorbed entitled shithead.

Then [ending]

after the worlds fastest "shit, you almost died, I've been awful" apology they're getting married and we get the least egregious sex scene in the book. It's an abrupt "The End."

I would have loved to see some more resolution for this one. There's so much extremely challenging stuff going on it feels like there's not any decompression or character aftercare.

The prose, vibe, and Imogen are interesting and pull you in, but there's a throughline of "wait a minute, what?"

Sex Scenes: These weren't for me. Dubcon/Noncon with heavy (undiscussed) male dominance themes in most physically romantic scene. There's an attempt to make it feel animalistic that didn't really hit for me. Just a lot of overpowering someone inexperienced and it feels off-kilter.

Narrator: Derek Perkins' performance kept me pretty locked in. I think I would have DNF'd if it hadn't been as well done as it was.

Dorothy and Toto escape the dog catcher and explore a dark and politically saavy Oz.

They are appropriately horrified.

This Dorothy is a Critical Role fan and it's very cute. There are lots of references to modern tech and media.

Toto is your POV, 1st person, adventure fantasy, modern (2020s) Wizard of Oz adaptation/retelling, most of the characters are late teens or animals, some swearing, and (bc it's Oz) body horror

Hackwith does a great job- if you're a fan of the world of Oz, either from the original or Wicked, and dig an adaptation, I think this one's for you. 

Personally, Oz isn't one of my favorite FantasyLands to visit and I had a great time with this book. Particularly interesting and cool take on political powers and magic.

Jovial but broody ship's captain broods about grieving debutant who thinks he's very pretty.

2 POVs plus some Rafe (youngest bro) POV scenes, half ship roadtrip, half high society setting, Victorian era (1850s), low to medium spice

The brooding! We have a 28 year old saying [30% in]

"I'm too old to ever do anything else but be on the sea and I'll never leave it because I'm so old and stuck in my ways." Like a lot.

He's also [20% in]

kinda a bad flirt, (heavy handed)

which is wild for rake-type character.

We get a lot of his opinion of how women work and it does not make me think he's as... prolific as reputed.

This one has lots of fun side characters and the protagonists have plenty of bright moments, they just don't seem to move emotionally in response to conflict or points of self reflection. There's a lot of rehashing sans progress.

I don't know why he fell for her, besides "she's very pretty"- which is fair enough, but hard to get amped about bc of all the brooding.

Her hoard of brothers are very silly and excellent.

Narrator: Faye Adele's performance is very slow paced in this one. I don't usually use the speed-up options, but did for some scenes in this (1.25-1.5x)

That slowness may have colored some of the pacing issues I found in the book, but I can't tell.

Next book: debating on jumping into Book 3 immediately. If Tristan's book was about

insecure attachment making him want to leave all the time as a method of control

, Rafe seems like he's going to drop some major

toxic masculinity issues about it not being good to have feelings or cry

bc of how his 14 yo brothers left him.

Really just want these brothers to do some bonding and get some hugs.

Disabled veteran with a murderous uncle reunites with the girl-next-door who saved him, his twin, and his kid brother

2 POVs, with a few side POVs by another person, protagonists are 24 and 26, medium to low spice, Victorian era (1850s), light love triangle, heavy vengeance, reunited brothers

The plot here is a banger- murderUncle usurps a birthright, [Chapter 1]

the brothers split to different fates to avoid capture as kids, then reunite to right things, and run into the girl who saved them all grown up- at a ball she attends with her fiancé,  while they attempt choke out their uncle.

The brothers are super charming and interesting and the action moves.

The romance beats and "the Ton" are less compelling (lots of rumor and image management by people who are a little at sea about it,) but Mary and Sebastian are good protagonists. Our boy's a little extra angsty and we have another "war has scarred my very handsome face- look away!" dude, but Mary is pretty on point. Not as ballsy or hoydeny as you expect, but her choices feel pretty true to character. [80% in, re: character background]

she did spend 12 years in a nunnery and apparently did nothing worth commenting on the entire time, which feels wild.

I think I expected more "what were those 12 years like" all around- and you get some of that- but most of the book's focus is on high society judgement and manuevering. And the murderUncle.

Sex Scenes: Sex scenes are pretty low detail. I think we get more bathing details than sex details. [First time language]

I think "maidenhead" is used at some point and that's always too bad. At 24, after riding horses and spending days in carriages, 90% likelihood your hymen's not around, bud.

Narrator:  Faye Adele's performance is well done. There are some unhinged villian POVs that are super well acted.

Divorced American horse girl countess and horse boy marquess traumatized by the English boarding school system fall for each other while trying to get someone to hit on her sister.

2 main POVs with one side POV, pretend relationship with 3rd party, Victorian era, romance, spicy, MC ages mid-20s (25/27ish)

Pretty mellow scandal-as-conflict book. Both MCs are likeable and there's lots of cameos from other Heathverse MCs and locations bc Rex is related to everyone.

She's divorced for super reasonable reasons but that's a new thing, he doesn't want shitty kids to pick on his kids like he was so he avoids public scandal like the plague. Her uncle wants him to help out her sister who people avoid bc of her sister's divorce by pretending an interest.

Just a super even workhorse book.

Narrator: Helen Lloyd does a good job- one of the best performances I've heard toggle between British and American accents. There's no "why is she suddenly Southern or that old timey faux midatlantic accent" and that's very appreciated.

Antony Ferguson does one or two quick journal readings.