Title: Notorious Pleasures Series: Maiden Lane #2
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Published: February 1, 2011
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 371
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Lady Hero Batten, the beautiful sister of the Duke of Wakefield, has everything a woman could want, including the perfect fiancé. True, the Marquis of Mandeville is a trifle dull and has no sense of humor, but that doesn't bother Hero. Until she meets his notorious brother...
Griffin Remmington, Lord Reading, is far from perfect-and he likes it that way. How he spends his days is a mystery, but all of London knows he engages in the worst sorts of drunken revelry at night. Hero takes an instant dislike to him, and Griffin thinks that Hero, with her charities and faultless manners, is much too impeccable for society, let alone his brother. Yet their near-constant battle of wits soon sparks desire-desire that causes their carefully constructed worlds to come tumbling down. As Hero's wedding nears, and Griffin's enemies lay plans to end their dreams forever, can two imperfect people find perfect true love?
Another Maiden Lane novel, another book where sex constitutes as relationship-building sufficient to warrant a Happily Ever After. Oh, Elizabeth Hoyt—I see what you’re doing here. And let me not miss the main point: I liked this book! (But man is there a lot of canoodling.)
The heroine in this case is Lady Hero, sister of a duke. She’s dignified, conscious of her place, and perfectly well-behaved. And…that’s it. Usually when I read a romance I can go on for paragraphs about the female protagonist and her growth, but only have a few sentences about the hero. Usually this is because the man ~kind of~ operates as a launching pad for the heroine’s own self-actualization. But I’m not sure that was the case here? Lady Hero was kind of boring, and I’m not sure that she changed or developed much over the course of Notorious Pleasures. She’s your pretty typical “well-bred lady falls in love with a scandalous rake in spite of her better judgment” type character. Which is fine! Just…not very memorable.
Lord Griffin, on the other hand, had a lot more going for him. Obviously he’s a scoundrel and a cad—the opening scene of the book sees Lady Hero walking in on him in the middle of fucking some other (married) woman. Even so, Hoyt peels back the layers of what appears to be a typical rake/rogue and winds up with a pretty sympathetic anti-hero. Much of his reputation, we learn, was unfairly laid at his feet, and some of the other “bad things” he’s done were done out of necessity.
Um, but like I said, the primary romantic development in Notorious Pleasures takes the form of Hero and Griffin doing the nasty. (Apparently Lady Hero can orgasm just from nipple stimulation in a moving carriage. Hah!) They first have sex around the 50% mark and then just proceed to go at it pretty much every time they meet. As I’ve said before, Hoyt can always write a good sex scene, but I’m not sure that it’s a good replacement for actual conversation. (GASP!) Yeah, I know, how ridiculous of me, wanting the starring couple to sit down and talk about their feelings.
Also Griffin proposes around the 60% point and then just spends the rest of the book trying to convince Hero to accept him?
Also Hero’s fiancé, AKA Griffin’s older brother, bitchslaps her when he finds out she’s been sleeping with Griffin? But it’s not really a big deal? Because he was “provoked”? Also there’s this weird B-romance featuring said fiancée-beater and a scandalous widow?
Not to mention that back in St. Giles (the slums), there’s some kind of turf war going on regarding gin distillers and the infamous Ghost of St. Giles who’s basically the Georgian version of the Dread Pirate Roberts? (Aaaas youuu wiiiiiiiish…)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t know, fam. I’m just reporting what went down. Don’t look at me.
I’m really sorry (not sorry), I just really like to make fun of things. Notorious Pleasures was pretty solidly entertaining. Not, like, the best. I did enjoy Wicked Intentions more, even though the WTFery in that book was at about a 9/10 whereas here it’s only 4/10. Ridiculous books are fun, what can I say?
I feel like the highlight of Notorious Pleasures is absolutely its anti-hero, Lord Griffin. I dug his character. He was a nice spin on the “sympathetic rakehell” persona. I was a little disappointed that Hoyt didn’t manage something similar with Lady Hero, who was a pretty vanilla version of the “young noblewoman experiencing a sexual awakening.” But that would be like having your cake and eating it too, and that’s just greedy. Don’t be greedy, folks.
Anyway, the next book belongs to Silence, which is great because I’m tired of all the sequel-baiting that’s been going down regarding her, that pirate guy, and her ~mysterious~ adopted daughter.
