So, it’s a fairly easy bet to see where the story is going.įrankly, the plot never really did make a great deal of sense to me and that is the book’s greatest weakness. And, of course, Georgiana doesn’t really hate Tristan. Still, Georgiana has money and Tristan needs to marry it. Tristan – whose feelings for Georgiana certainly weren’t clear to me – is, at the moment, sort of half-heartedly courting a wealthy young society miss and is, not surprisingly, very disconcerted at Georgiana’s sudden intrusion into his life. To that end, she moves into his house to act as a companion to his two spinster aunts. In fact, Georgina hates Tristan so much that she decides to make him fall in love with her so that she can then reject him and teach him how to properly treat a lady. And even though she never discovered the outcome of the wager – and since her lack of innocence isn’t public knowledge – Georgiana hates Tristan. As a result, along with her virginity, Georgiana lost all respect for Tristan when she learned of the existence of the bet. Six years earlier Tristan, seeking to win a wager to get both a kiss and a stocking from Georgiana, seduced our heroine. I’ll try to explain this so it’s clear, but to be honest, things remained murky for me throughout the book.

The first in a new Lessons in Love trilogy, The Rake tells the story of the tangled past and very confusing present of Lady Georgiana Halley and Tristan Carroway, Viscount Dare.

And, since I’ve very much enjoyed Suzanne Enoch’s books in the past, my reaction to this one is especially disappointing. As someone who loves historical romances set in the Regency period, it’s a very bad sign when I have to force myself to pick up a book again after each time I put it down.

The rake by suzanne enoch