Risk of Rogues by Sabrina Jeffries

Lady Anne is shocked when Captain Lord Hartley Corry - her former fiancé who left for India after her father forbade their marriage - returns to England and acts as if everything is all water under the bridge. He never fought for her hand or eloped with her as he promised and he thinks she'd still be willing to marry him? Not a chance.

Hartley is equally shocked to literally run into his past love upon arriving at his brother's house. Though he yearns to take advantage of this second chance to woo his beloved, he can hardly admit that he is secretly a spy - at least not until he can be sure he trusts her. But convincing Lady Anne to let him prove his sincerity by courting her respectably all over again might be his undoing. Because all he wants is to show her how much of a rogue he can be when the right woman is in his arms...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35297466-the-secret-of-flirting

Title: The Risk of Rogues
Author: Sabrina Jeffries
Series: Sinful Suitors
Pages: 100-199
Genre(s): Historical, Regency, England
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As I count it, this is the eighth Sinful Suitors story - but since novellas are counted as ‘half books’ - this is actually book number 5.5.

As with all the Sinful Suitor books, you don’t have to have read any of the others to read and enjoy this one - although since many of the characters pop up in each others books (and not just as cameos), you probably will get the gist of things a bit easier - or more quickly - if you’ve read the previous books.

This is the tale of Captain Lord Hartley Corry and Lady Anne/Miss Anne Barkley. The pair were young sweethearts before a refusal for Anne’s hand, and youthful foolishness, drove Hart halfway across the world in the army. 11 years later, the pair bump into each other (literally) and the sparks are immediately evident again. Yet now that’s tempered with a healthy amount of distrust.

I remembered Anne from a previous novel of Ms Jeffries where she fleetingly appeared. Who could forget those hats and that hair? She describes herself as something of an oddity and certainly not the season’s greatest beauty. The fact that Hart sees her quirks and loves her for them - and also sees her as the prettiest thing he’s ever seen - well, it’s a triumph for all us weirdos out there!

Hart - well, he was a bit funnier in earlier novels although some of his humour did come through on occasion in this book. The peacock’s bum comment, for example, made me laugh out loud. I thought it was a bit rich of him to expect Anne to blindly trust him while he didn’t plan to do the same but some men don’t react well to falling in love so I’ll forgive him that one!

As usual, Sabrina Jeffries doesn’t actually write a book but rather invites you to join her in the story. You’re absorbed in the detail and the story of the couple so the pages just fly by.

This was a novella and took little under an hour to read all in. I would have liked to see a little more development from the characters in the first half of the story. It felt at times like we were being told that the only thing the couple had in common in the past had been lust. As much as I adore a second chance romance - I want the fairytale of their true loves having been lost and found. Not that they were randy teens and love only grows now they’re adults. The second half showed the pair had truly been in love but I wanted more from the first half. And some more sexy shenanigans wouldn’t have gone a miss either!

This is still an excellent book and one that kept me happy on a rainy afternoon. I wished it could have been longer - but I wish that of all Sabrina Jeffries’ books. She excels at storytelling, and at love, and I’m always happy to recommend any book of hers. 4 stars.