Nine Rules to Break

It's rare that I pick up a romance novel. I went through a big romance phase when I was in high school (everything from Grace Livingston Hill's Christian romance to Victoria Holt's suspense to Danielle Steele's more modern stuff), but since then romances are few and far between (does this somehow speak to life after 40? Say it ain't so!).

But when I was out roaming the blogosphere, I happened to see Sarah MacLean's Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake posted and decided it was time to add a little romance to my life. It's set in the early 1800s (one of my favorite time periods) and the book blurb reeled me in:

"Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried--and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing. But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss--to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralson--charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile. If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all--the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love...:

This was a fun read. A great romp through the early 19th Century and I loved following Callie as she crossed off the nine items on her list of rules to break. It's interesting how many ways authors find to allow head-strong young ladies of earlier time periods to escape the mores of the times. Sometimes that works and sometimes it's painfully obvious that we've got a 20th/21st Century girl living in an earlier time period. MacLean's twist works very nicely.

The secondary story of the Marquess's new-found half-sister was also interesting without taking away from the main storyline . I understand that MacLean plans this to be a trilogy, so hopefully one of the future stories will follow the adventures of Juliana. Three stars out of five.