Maggi Andersen: Ravished by the Rake

 Improper Ladies book 3

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244254890-ravished-by-the-rake

Lady Prudence’s life gets turned upside down when her father is murdered in their home leading to her trying to unravel the mystery of why this happened along the way she enlists Jack (Viscount Hereford) to help à he is an agent for the crown, a rake and naturally determined to never fall in love or get married because women can only hurt you (he is dealing with some mom issues from childhood).

Shortly after Prudence faces her creepy cousin coming to take his new position as the Earl and insists that the best option for “everyone” is for them to get married… that’s a no from Prudence and she runs away from home in the middle of the night and again runs into Jack who escorts her safely to her Grandma’s home where she and Jack continue to try to piece together who could have wanted to harm her father. 

This was a cozy quick read for me, I’ve been reading historical romance since I was a teenager so nothing really was new but I enjoyed the banter between our couple (when they were actually together) for a short story they spend a lot of time apart and  there unfortunately was not much ravishing.  

FMC is a bit too independent for the time and often goes out on her own potentially getting herself into danger where Jack would need to rescue her. 

This is a stand alone and I read this without reading the first two books, I didn't even realize it was the 3rd in the series until after I had finished the book, the characters from the first books make very brief appearances in the book but it's not necessary to read their books to read this book. 

*ARC read 2025  *Netgalley *historical romance *mystery *handsome rake *quick read  *instalust  *interconnected stand alone *spy MMC *Fierce/feisty/independent FMC *happy ending *political issues  *banter

*grief (loss of father)  *abduction

possible spoilers: 

I felt the ending wrapped up really quickly a lot of the book feels like the characters aren't really doing much of anything to move the story along... then in the last 15% some older mysteries come into play and our leads are discussing love when they really didn't even have all that much time together there is a lot of inner monologue where you can see that they "like" each other but I had always felt it was more lust than love next thing you know they are all in immediately after both having feelings of never wanting to marry throughout a good portion of the book just seemed sudden to me and after the build up (sort of) with the villain the end feels kind of like an after thought.