Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

Lady Calpurnia (Callie) Hartwell is tired of the boring life she is living. Determined to change her ways, she writes up a list of nine things that’ll make her feel alive for sure. In the spirit of going big or going home, she first does the thing she wants the most, getting her first kiss.

Under the cover of the night, she goes to the house of Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston. He’s the man she’s had a crush on for many years. Rather conveniently, he also happens to be the most notorious rake in London and eventually becomes her partner in crime as she completes the list. She’ll have to be careful she doesn’t lose her heart to a man who she believes is completely out of her league.

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I have this part of me that wishes I were more outgoing, that I wasn’t hindered by what I thought everyone else would think. Reading about Callie’s escapades totally gives me hope! She’s amazingly bright and intelligent and funny, yet she doesn’t see herself like that at all. She’s finally gotten fed up with following society’s expectations and goes out to do some amazingly crazy things.  She’s so fun to watch.

The romance in this book?  It was addictive.  It’s always great to see two awesome people be awesome together.  Ralston can be a dense idiot at times but then, can’t we all?  I think I enjoyed the times the green-eyed monster came out most of all.  I don’t think jealousy would be attractive in real life, but in fiction, it can seem pretty hot.

I only have two small nitpick-ish issues with this book. First, and this is sort of a spoiler, I don’t like it when one person “changes” the other person. I know so many girls who think they can change their boyfriends and 99% of the time, it doesn’t work that way. Thankfully, though, this wasn’t too much of an issue for me since that isn’t what Callie sets out to do. *end of sort-of spoiler* The second small issue for me was the cover. In the book, Callie is described as “slightly plump.” If the girl on the cover is slightly plump, I think I’m going to through away all the mirrors in the house. This has become a comment complaint I have about romance book covers.

I picked up this book after reading Alea’s review on Pop Culture Junkie. Intrigued, it became my first romance read. Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake is SO GOOD. I never thought I’d be much of a romance reader, but since reading it I’ve done some exploring in the genre and have found some great reads!   Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord was just recently released, and I can’t wait to read it!

So, basically, just read this book!