Title: Lady Rogue Series: Royal Rewards #3
Author: Theresa Romain
Published: April 24, 2018
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 368
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:As far as London's high society knows, Lady Isabel Morrow is above reproach. But the truth is rarely so simple. Though the young widow's passionate fling with dashing Bow Street Runner Callum Jenks ended amicably months ago, she now needs his expertise. It seems Isabel's late husband, a respected art dealer, was peddling forgeries. If those misdeeds are revealed, the marriage prospects of his younger cousin—now Isabel's ward—will be ruined.
For the second time, Isabel has upended Callum's well-ordered world. He's resolved to help her secretly replace the forgeries with the real masterpieces, as a...friend. A proper sort of friend doesn't burn with desire, of course, or steal kisses on twilight errands. Or draw a willing lady into one passionate encounter after another. Isabel's scheme is testing Callum's heart as well as his loyalties. But with pleasure so intoxicating, the real crime would be to resist.
Lady Rogue is a mediocre Regency romance that fails to deliver on its two major selling points: an exploration of the middle class and a high-profile art heist.
The distinctive aspect of the Theresa Romain novels I’ve read thus far is her inclusion of the middle class. In a genre overfull of lords and ladies and disguised royalty, there’s something refreshing about a protagonist who doesn’t live in a palace, who worries about how they’re going to afford food, and who didn’t receive the best education money can buy. As I’ve come to expect from the author, Lady Rogue’s male protagonist, Callum Jenks, is a police officer and the son of a grocer. That’s about as middle-class as it could get at the time, and I was very excited by Calum’s presence in the novel. To my disappointment, his love interest is Lady Isobel, the daughter of a marquess, so that was less satisfying. Even so, whenever I think of Romain, I’m certain to think of her more down-to-earth, less exalted leading characters.
Of course, the reader might have to suspend their disbelief in order to buy the premise. A policeman and a noblewoman? Fat chance, you might say. And you’re probably correct. Lady Rogue looks at history through modernized pink-colored glasses that make it far more likely that people could hurdle social barriers with impunity. I’m not quite sure I bought Callum and Isobel’s HEA, but it’s romance, so the rules are flexible. Right?
Lady Rogue begins some time after a) Lady Isobel’s husband shot himself and b) Isobel and Callum had secret sex in Vauxhall Gardens. Isobel asks Callum over to her house and explains that she needs help stealing a priceless Botticelli painting from a duke, because her deceased husband (an art dealer) sold the duke a forgery and kept the original for himself. This is a problem because Isobel is trying to marry off her ward, Lucy, and any tinge of scandal would ruin the marital scavenger hunt.
Makes sense, I guess?
Of course, what really seems like to ruin the marital scavenger hunt is a respectable widow out late at night, wearing pantaloons, climbing into a duke’s window, drugging his dogs, and then stealing his painting. Seems highly scandalous to me, but apparently Isobel says not. Okay then, m’lady.
This book is really strange because it boasts of a great deal of intrigue, but somehow manages to be a complete snorefest. Almost halfway into Lady Rogue, the only thing that happened was Callum and Isobel making a plan and visiting various locations in preparation for the heist. The theft itself occurs around the midpoint of the book, but then it’s back to plodding around until the ultimate Happily Ever After happens. Oh, also don’t mention the surprise murder mystery that randomly pops up about two chapters from the end! (Seriously, what the fuck?) And somewhere along the way, the protagonists also fell in love—I don’t know where or when, because this is not a very romantic romance novel.
I’m not opposed to a good slow burn romance. I’m not opposed to a romance wherein the only things that happen are the protagonists talking and getting to know each other. But for one thing, Lady Rogue is boring. For another thing, between an art heist and a murder, I don’t think this novel was meant to be either slow-paced or understated. I believe that Romain wanted the story to be exiting, the characters to have palpable chemistry, and for the audience to be hooked.
Reader, I was not hooked.
For a book that seemed to spend so much time in character-building and in allowing its protagonists to get to know each other, there was a confusing dearth of personality from both Callum and Isobel. I didn’t get a great feel for either one, except for the rare expository passage where the author tells her audience what kind of people her characters are. That wasn’t particularly mesmerizing.
Going along with this, there was no chemistry. At all. This is partially because Romain just didn’t write anything remotely sexy on the page. I fully believe that a closed-door romance can be just as sizzling as a more explicit novel—sex isn’t always required to sell the love story. However, sex (or some heavy petting) really would have helped here. In this book, we got a single sex scene (unutterably boring and forgettable) and nothing else. Isobel and Callum’s initial “spark” of attraction happened off-page, 18 months before Lady Rogue opens. That’s the other problem: if you’re writing a book about a couple who had a scandalous one-night-stand in a pleasure garden, maybe include that in the book? Give me something to work with.
The thing that really killed my enjoyment of Lady Rogue, however, was the conclusion.
First, Romain tosses readers a curveball with the surprise murder plot. It was weird and rushed and sloppy—and it really didn’t need to be! If some seeds for this plot twist had been sown throughout the first three-fourths of the book, I wouldn’t have found the “surprise! Isobel’s husband was actually murdered!” twist to be so jarring.
Second, the “grand declaration of love” scene? Completely missing. Or if it was there, it was so weak it might as well have been missing. There was no drama or tension or emotion in Callum and Isobel’s decision to be together. And based on the lack of chemistry I’ve discussed above, I didn’t even believe that they actually loved each other. Lady Rogue finishes on an anticlimactic note, which was fitting, since the entire book seemed to promise a lot more than it ever delivered.
I applaud Romain for continuing to feature the middle-classes and less-privileged members of Regency society in her novels. However, I’m not sure how much good it does if her books are so flavorless. (This is the second time I’ve been extremely bored while reading a Theresa Romain novel.) Lady Rogue attempted to be an exciting, sexy book about an unconventional couple lurking on the fringes of high society. In the end, it was a mostly uninteresting and dispassionate novel, with the occasional moment when something more shined through.
