Ruined by a Rake - An All's Fair in Love Novella

Our heroine meets the hero when they are young and he becomes a cousin by way of a marriage. They don't get along all that well as the years go by, but well enough for him to teach her to fence.

Her odious uncle is planning to force her to marry one of his political cronies. Our hero returns for a visit while on leave. He realizes the problem she faces as she has never had the desire to wed.

And he has been in love with her since first seeing her. So he kisses her when he knows they will be seen. She realizes her feelings for him and an aunt steps in to help out too.

It was a decent story but much too short, and I didn't really care for a long, drawn out fencing scene. I would have welcomed more interaction between the main characters in the way of dialogue.

But overall a good story and worth reading.

I was somewhat confused at how things were worded in the first few pages but figured it out after reading them a couple times. I was enthralled in the book from the beginning. I love stories like this. Men don't do selfless acts for love like this anymore. :)

This short novella is about a boy named nicolas who fell in love with his step cousin ellie/Eleanor. Now grown up Eleanor is forced to marry one of her uncle's political allies to further his bill. However, Nick is having none of it. They fence in the early hours of the morning and act indifferent of each other at night. It all comes to a head when one of Eleanor' s suitors ask her to marry him and Nick intervenes by kissing ellie for all to see then take the heat for it including banishment.

I gave it a 3 star cause it is a sweet story but very short. There was also, no love scenes except at the end when Nick kissed ellie and that was pretty much it. It's a good short read if you are traveling, and you need something to read. But, if you need a lot more substance, action, steamy love scenes and plenty of misunderstanding than this is not the story to read.

Predictable but still good. The author knows how to explore the feelings of the characters and they are very solid and well built. For the lovers of romance and true feelings it should be a great choice.

I would give this novella 5 stars.
My favorite books to read are historical romances because I'm a romantic and like happy endings.
From page 1, this story had my attention and I couldn't put it down.
I have never read anything by this author before but it looks like she is going to become a favorite of mine.

Okay, I have a pet peeve about novellas and short stories. They tend to end so abruptly you wonder why the author bothered. The novella started out very well. I really enjoyed the writing style of the author and the story line. My first problem was the confusion between Uncle Malcolm and Lord Henry. Often Uncle is referred to as "Henry" instead of "Malcolm". So I kept rereading to figure out who was on first. This happens throughout the latter part of the book. Then just as the plot got interesting, the book was over. A wind down would be great or alternatively, an epilogue so that all the loose ends were wrapped up and you slide rather than jolt to a close.

Okay, I have a pet peeve about novellas and short stories. They tend to end so abruptly you wonder why the author bothered. The novella started out very well. I really enjoyed the writing style of the author and the story line. My first problem was the confusion between Uncle Malcolm and Lord Henry. Often Uncle is referred to as "Henry" instead of "Malcolm". So I kept rereading to figure out who was on first. This happens throughout the latter part of the book. Then just as the plot got interesting, the book was over. A wind down would be great or alternatively, an epilogue so that all the loose ends were wrapped up and you slide rather than jolt to a close.

The storyline of a returned hero returning to help a maid in distress is hardly new, but there is a delightful freshness about this story and the leading characters. The hero is wonderfully heroic, the heroine beautiful and brave, yet there are times when they seem to dice with danger and I had to read the next page to see what happened. A lovely novella with a memorable touch of whimsy