The worst thing Mr. Benjamin Hillary ever did was leave his bride-to-be on their wedding day.
The hardest thing he will ever have to do is watch her marry another man.
After two long years
abroad, Ben finds Eve every bit as captivating as she was the first time
he saw her, and he vows to set things right.
Lady Eve Thorne has a new man in her life, and Ben is nothing but trouble. She is no longer a starry-eyed young woman, and now that he's back, he can go hang for all she cares. At least that's what she keeps telling herself...
Lady Eve Thorne has a new man in her life, and Ben is nothing but trouble. She is no longer a starry-eyed young woman, and now that he's back, he can go hang for all she cares. At least that's what she keeps telling herself...
This was my first foray into the writing world of Samantha Grace and to be honest, it might be my last. Initially, I was really intrigued by the blurb on this one. I thought that it would be an interesting push and pull between two men that Eve are attached to ... one from the past and one from the present. And I thought that both dudes would be a bit sketchy because hey, the book is called The Best of Both Rogues. But that is not what I encountered. At all.
I guess I'll just start with the title ... which was a little misleading, in my opinion. In these historical romance novels, when I see the word 'rogue', it leads me to believe that the man in question is sketchy or naughty or has some deplorable quality that (I will find endearing) will make him unappealing to a lady in the book. The two men involved in this novel aren't rogues. Hell, I even had to look up the definition because I thought that maybe what I thought was a rogue wasn't a rogue and I have been totally wrong all these years. But rogue means dishonest or unprincipled ... a villain, scoundrel, rascal, miscreant. I just didn't see one of these male characters as that and maybe I could see the other one as a scoundrel but it was only if I pulled a Mona Lisa ... you know ... when you squint and look away really quickly ... anyhow. The title was misleading.
I didn't have a problem with any of the characters, I generally liked all of them. I enjoyed getting to know Eve and Ben. I thought that Ben was a nicely tortured character (my favorite) and Eve was a sweet, yet strong female lead but other than just a general and flat feeling of being okay with these characters, I really had no other feelings toward them. None of them knocked my socks off or made me wish that I could have just one more sentence, paragraph or chapter with them because the thought of the book being over and the character's stories being done was close to crushing my soul. I was just okay with it being done.
The story itself was interesting but it felt pushed along. The plot didn't go just buzzing along at an interesting place, I found myself having to push through paragraphs just to get to the next part of the book. That is never a good feeling to have. Especially when it is a book in one of my favorite genres. I should be left wondering how the characters are doing or wishing that I could see just a few more instances where sparks are flying between the to leads. I wasn't to the point of wishing for my death rather than having to finish this book but I didn't seek the book out in my free time, either.
All in all, I might pick up another book by this author and I might not. I don't know. I do know that this book has received a pretty high rating, so I might be super wrong about what I'm feeling and my thoughts on this one. Maybe I missed something. Maybe there is an outside reason why I didn't connect and maybe I would change my mind on my rating if I read it again. At this point, I stand completely behind my rating and I hope that the experience is different for other readers.
* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *
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