Sins of a Ruthless Rogue by Anna Randol

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Today I'm reviewing Anna Randol's Sins of a Ruthless Rogue! 

 

When apprentice Clayton Campbell discovers his employer is embezzling funds from his investors, he prepared to put a halt to it. But his plan is betrayed by his employer’s daughter, and he is framed and sentenced to hang. Fate instead hands him to the British Foreign Service.

Now released from his duty to his country, Clayton is free to seek revenge on the family that destroyed him. Then his enemy’s daughter approaches him for help deciphering a code she claims to have found in a dead man’s gallows confession. The code reveals the plans of a violent Russian spy ring long ago disbanded. His investigation into the cold, troubled palaces of Russia thrusts both of their lives into danger, and sparks fierce passion he’d thought forgotten. But is this tempting woman really the innocent she seems or a cold-hearted vixen pursuing a plan of revenge more intricate than his own?

When Clayton Campbell walks back into Olivia Swift’s life, she is elated—for a moment. But it becomes clear Campbell wants nothing but her ruin. Yet she cannot blame him, after all, it was her betrayal that sent him to the gallows. Time has carved the shy, awkward lad into a cold, ruthless man. A decade of poverty has taught her she’d be a fool to allow him close. But when she discovers a threat to his life, she sees a way to repay her debt. When she brings him the information, he makes it clear all he sees is another betrayal. He gives her an ultimatum—either prove the threat is real or pay her debt with her body and soul.

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Sins of a Ruthless Rogue is the second book in Anna Randol’s Sinners Trio. It’s an exciting tale of betrayal and forgiveness, all wrapped up in a story which proves that love really can conquer all – if you'll only give it the chance!

To say this story has everything is to say the least. Rogues and revolutionaries, treason and torture, murder and mayhem, blackmail, scandal, revenge… spies, agents, thugs, assassins, princes, princesses, czars, peasants… seriously… this story has it all, including a believable romance and some steamy lovin’. It’s a uniquely intriguing tale with compelling characters, and I loved every minute I spent reading it!

And speaking of compelling characters! The first glimpse we're given of Clayton and Olivia are as a young, engaged couple. Clayton is a noble, honorable idealist, and Olivia a fairly naive, spoiled young woman. They both think they're doing the right thing, for the right reason, but in the end, both are devastated. When next we see them, it's ten years later, and they are so far removed, so very different from the people they had once been. Both have been betrayed in one sense or another and they've learned that it's safer to trust no one but themselves. And this, believe it or not, in my opinion, is where the beauty of their love is born.

One of my favorite things about this story is the happy ending which, because it wasn't easy to get there, felt so real! So believable! To have any hope of surviving this deadly mission, Clayton and Olivia have to trust one another enough to share their secrets, and to put the past behind them. Trust... no relationship is worth having - or can survive - without it, and that's the lesson they have to learn. And their happily ever after, once they got it, was hard fought and well deserved.

Anna Randol is a unique, fresh voice in historical romance, and I am so looking forward to reading more by this very gifted writer!

My sincerest thanks to Avon Books for providing me with a copy of Sins of a Ruthless Rogue in exchange for an honest review. It's been such pleasure!

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Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

 She gave him her innocence . . .Lady Aline Marsden was brought up for one reason: to make an advantageous marriage to a member of her own class. Instead, she willingly gave her innocence to John McKenna, a servant on her father's estate. Their passionate transgression was unforgivable -- John was sent away, and Aline was left to live in the countryside . . . an exile from London society . . .and he took her love.

Now McKenna has made his fortune, and he has returned -- more boldly handsome and more mesmerizing than before. His ruthless plan is to take revenge on the woman who shattered his dreams of love. But the magic between them burns as bright as ever. And now he must decide whether to let vengeance take its toll . . . or risk everything for his first, and only, love.

*****

Lisa Kleypas has done it again, and in a big way. Again the Magic is a wonderful story with so many dimensions and so much depth that I was up until the wee hours of the morning, unable to put it down. This story is actually a “prequel” to the Wallflowers series. While I’ve never seen it listed as a numbered book in the series, the characters in Again the Magicare featured heavily in It Happened One Autumn, book 2 of the Wallflowers,  as well as in the other Wallflower novels.

There are so many good things to say about this book that I don’t know where to start. As usual with Kleypas’ writing, we have characters who are so well developed that they cease to be words on a page and become living, breathing people. We can imagine them as friends, family, lovers and even enemies.

Again the Magic actually tells 2 stories. There is the main hero/heroine theme revolving around Lady Aline and McKenna, and a secondary hero/heroine theme revolving around Lady Olivia Marsden, Aline’s younger sister, and Gideon Shaw, McKenna’s American business partner. However, I find it difficult to describe Olivia’s and Gideon’s part of the story as secondary because it was so full, so detailed, that it felt to me as though it were its own, singular novel. And that made me very happy!

I found Again the Magic to be refreshingly more honest than your usual fluffy historical romance novel. The reactions of the characters were more in keeping with what I would have expected given the depth of their feelings for one another and their lack of control over certain situations.

Anger and frustration are emotions that linger near the surface and are often the first emotions we feel when being faced with situations that are beyond our ability to change. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the people we love just can’t seem to trust us to love them enough to see past their flaws, be those flaws physical or emotional. Such is the case with Lady Aline and the scars she carries from an injury she received in a kitchen fire. I don’t want to go into detail here and give away too much of the story, but her shame over the deep, severe scars keeps her from accepting McKenna’s love. She just can’t seem to trust him to love her enough…

McKenna has no idea why Lady Aline keeps pushing him away, but finally he has had enough and is ready to return to America, alone, a heartbroken man. But through a unexpected intervention by an unlikely person, Aline is given the opportunity to finally unload her burden and tell McKenna the truth and I loved his reaction. He didn’t just pat her on the head and say “It’s going to be ok, love, I forgive you and we’ll get past this.” Nope, in fact, he let her have it with both barrels. He held nothing back when he described the hell she had put him through and this is the type of reaction I would have expected from a man so desperately in love. He made her listen as he poured out the anguish he had been feeling, and then he summed it all up in just a few simple words:

“My God.” The blood rose higher in his face. “What if the situation were reversed and I was the one who had been hurt? Would you have left me?” 

“No!”

“Then why did you expect anything less of me?”

The entire exchange was so well written, so perfect and exactly the reaction I would have expected (and hoped for) from a man who thought he had forever lost the love of his life. I was cheering him on with every word he spoke, and when he finally took her to bed I loved how he wouldn’t allow her to hide her scars from him.

And again we see, between Olivia and Gideon, the same honest reaction from Olivia regarding Gideon’s drinking problem when he asked her to marry him and she turned him down. She didn’t sugar coat anything, nor did she give him an ultimatum, but told him, "…I won’t subject myself to the process of losing you little by little, until you’ve either killed yourself or become someone that I don’t recognize.” Again, this is the kind of reaction I hope for from my heroes and heroines. She wasn’t going to sit by and watch the man she was in love with slowly deteriorate by his own actions.

As I said, there are so many good things about this story that I really don’t know where to start or how to cover them all. Suffice it to say that Again the Magic has a charm, an honesty and a depth and breadth to it that has earned it a place on my list of all time favorite reads.

 Whether you’re looking for an excellent stand alone novel or want a series to read, I highly recommend Again the Magic and the Wallflowers.

Reading order:


Again The Magic - Prequel to the Wallflowers

1.Secrets of a Summer Night

2.It Happened One  Autumn

3.Devil In Winter

4.Scandal in the Spring

5.A Wallflower Christmas