His Wicked Reputation

This book was very bland and was a chore to finish. The writer spent a great deal of time laying the foundation for later books when se should have focused more on developing the story at hand and the relationship between the characters.I was turned off by the opening scene that found our hero in bed in an explicit embrace with his current lady love. Was that really necessary? What did that have to do with the story at hand? We know he had a wicked reputation, there was not need to go there. The reader would have picked that up from the far too many references made through the book..The romance between the Eva and Gareth did not work. Their too-soon-in-the narrative encounters were frequent and sexual, but not at all romantic. There was no tension or obstacles to their relationship. There was not inherent conflict. Just lots of sex with a mystery (more on that later) as a backdrop. I find that many writers in the genre inject a lot of sex when the story is lacking. Never more true than here.The mystery was week. When Gareth first met Eva, she was carrying something that should have been an unmistakable shape to someone in Gareth line of business. Yet, he did not recognize it or make connections to people and events that were hiding in plane sight. If the writer could not come up with a better mystery than this, why bother?This book is not indicative of Madeline Hunter's work. Her narrative, character development and story development and usually compelling, complex and a cut about most others in the genre. I guess even the best strikes out occasionally.

Madeline Hunter is the only historical romance author on my pre-order list and I have read all her books with great pleasure. I love that she is now doing a series on three brothers, of which this first brother was indeed deliciously wicked. I think the suspense plot in this book is one of the finest she has written, though as an art historian I may be a little biased here :-) Most of all, I love that her stories seem to present a much more realistic and believable image of how things worked in historical society than almost every other book in their genre, while still containing some deliciously naughty moments between hero and heroine. With most historicals, characters seem too modern for their time and it is only the corsets, carriages and occasional curtseys that make me feel like I am 'stepping into the past'.Comparing this book to Madeline Hunter's previous series, I do somehow wonder if she was given a new editor or maybe her publisher wanted her to commercialize a little, reach a wider market. The characters seemed less nuanced and intellectual in thought than those in her previous series, their internal dialogue did not seem quite as layered. This took away some of the emotional depth of the story for me. Whereas Madeline Hunter's characters usually have original names, half the population in 'His Wicked Reputation' shares a surname with characters from Downton Abbey or Jane Austen's novels (Crawley, Mansfield...). Overall the book seemed a little less intelligently written than her previous series, though I would certainly still recommend it. It is a Madeline Hunter, after all :-)

Though 'His Wicked Reputation' starts a bit slow it builds to a decent, if abrupt ending. I suppose that since this is the first book in the Wicked Trilogy, the author did not feel compelled to tie up certain loose ends like who killed the oldest brother, whether or not all the missing art work was found and whether or not Eva, the heroine, will face legal consequences for art forgery. All that said, the H/h of this story do have enough of a HEA that you may find yourself on the fence about buying the next book in the series.Be advised that the sensuality rating on this book would run about a seven on a scale of ten. While I don't mind sex in the books I read, I prefer it to be a bit more 'organic' as they say these days...a natural consequence of building sexual tension. There was one time in particular that the sex felt more crude than romantic which is a substantial turn off for me.Bottom line: this book is not bad, but neither is it great. The jury is out as to my decision on buying the next in the series.

The appeal, smarts and beauty of a really good book is hard to describe. Is it in the language? Or the plot? Or the characters we identify with even although their lives are so different to ours? It must not be too outrageous to believe but not to ordinary to bore, either; reality must be offset by hope. The truth is it must be all these thing. For me, it must include humour and if I can pick up a snippet of knowledge I never had before that’s an added bonus. But ultimately, for me, it must delight the heart and make the whole body sing with joy.Just in case you haven’t worked it out, I loved this book! Madeline Hunter blends mystery, passion and love into a perfect cocktail of romance. There’s self-awareness and self-development. And art. Oh. And brothers, so sequels. Yay.However, there will be no plot spoilers from me. Go forth and read Gareth and Eva’s story. Enchantment and history wait to enthralling you.PS: The audiobook is also excellent if you prefer listening to reading.

...... but although I liked the well drawn characters and a plot that was a little bit different, the storyline simply got bogged down with too many sex scenes and then simply petered out. The denoument did become predictable too.

Not as solid as her usual fare, the impropriety of the impoverished gentlewoman heroine embarking on a spontaneous affair with the hero, acknowledged natural ducal son, bothered me far more than it did the heroine, who never hesitated or questioned its wisdom, effect on her sister's chances of making an appropriate match, or that she might end up pregnant, alone and still poor. They were not even being very subtle about their going-ons, indicating their amorous intents in front of family. He did not appear too overtly concerned about protecting her reputation and good name and future either, until the very end when he then decided to make an honest woman out of her. There should be at least some internal moral struggle experienced by either or both. I understand he was wicked from the start, but she was appropriately prudish in the beginning and outraged at her sister's suggestion of them becoming courtesans and a staunch defender of what she saw as the corruption of her sister's innocent mind by the two Neville sisters. Her incongruous subsequent behaviour just marred the story for me.

I think MD has some good ideas and characters, butI do have to wonder why she chooses the Regency Period in England for her stories. At no point did I feel the characters were in any way in olde England or English, because their language and behaviour were more modern American.Please, MD, stop starting sentences with ‘Hell’. That would help a lot. Maybe you could read one or two books from that particular era?She obviously knows a lot about the style, however, and her plots are quite exciting.

I always look forward to Madeline Hunter's books but I have to admit that I was a bit leery after the disappointment of 'The Accidental Duchess'. Fortunately, this one represents a return to form. While it is not as good as her medievals, the story is fun, and the characters are generally engaging. My only real quarrels with it were that the plot seems to end with a whimper rather than a bang, and I would have liked to have seen more of the secondary characters (hopefully at least the Neville sisters will return in the subsequent volumes).

Ah why are the blurbs so interesting and the books utterly awful ? The premise of the story ( the mystery) is wonderful but the writing is a total miss. Normally enjoy Madeline Hunter but this was painful.