To Capture a Rake by Lori Brighton

Narrated by Fiona Underwood  To Capture a Rake

To Capture a Rakeis the follow-up story to To Seduce an Earl, which I read last year and, despite a few reservations, enjoyed overall. The heroes of each of the three novels in the series are male prostitutes, employed by the infamous Lady Lavender at her exclusive establishment for ladies looking for a little “company”. Although employed may not be the correct term, as each of them is more or less a prisoner, forced into working as whores and kept there because they are being blackmailed by Lady Lavender over some dark secret in their pasts.

When we met Gideon Drake in the first book, he was jaded, cynical and hard-hearted. His continual escape attempts mean that he is never allowed to leave Lavender Hills – until his latest client somehow manages to persuade Lady L to let him leave with her for a two-week stay at her country estate.

Elizabeth Ashton is a wealthy widow seeking male companionship. She has one particular male in mind, and despite Lady Lavender’s attempts to dissuade her, refuses to leave without the man she wants – Gideon. It’s clear from the outset that she has sought him out for reasons that have little to do with his profession (well, she wants him for that, too!) and that she is not quite the woman of the world she is trying to appear.

Naturally, Gideon is suspicious, both of Elizabeth and of her motives in springing him from Lavender Hills. He is abrasive, sullen, and often rude, partly because it’s his survival mechanism, partly because he’s been that way for so long that he’s almost forgotten how to be anything else, and partly (as the story progresses) as a way to keep an emotional distance from Elizabeth, even as he recognises that he is attracted to her beyond what is required of him.

The story revolves around family secrets and a missing heir, with an obnoxious and possibly murderous mother-in-law thrown in for good measure. It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, although the fact that the hero has been earning his living as a whore for the past decade or so does put a slightly different spin on things. Elizabeth, too, is not your run-of-the-mill genteel widow; before she married she was a chambermaid so she, like Gideon, has experienced the worst of society as well as the comforts it can offer.

While I had a couple of minor issues with the plotting (it’s difficult to explain without giving too much away), my problems with the book overall were principally concerned with the characterisation and more importantly, with the progression of the romance.

I thought the first part of the story worked quite well, as both Gideon and Elizabeth were metaphorically circling each other, with Elizabeth trying to work out how much of the truth to tell Gideon, and he sensing she’s not telling him everything even as he tries to refrain from becoming too involved in her situation.

Gideon is presented – and thinks of himself – as a cold-hearted bastard who doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone. He hates his life, he hates himself, and he hates Lady Lavender even more, but she’s got him by the short and curlies because of what she knows about his past, and his attempts to escape her have been thwarted at every turn. He’s cynical and he’s actually quite unpleasant, yet he’s extremely good at his job and it’s not long before Elizabeth is flat on her back getting her money’s worth!

Elizabeth is alternately fascinated and repulsed by him (more the former than the latter, of course) and very soon, she begins to see him as a heroic figure, a man worthy of trust and thus one on whom she can rely to protect her and her children from the harm it seems someone is trying to inflict upon them. I didn’t feel there was any real basis for this, apart from the fact that Gideon saved Elizabeth from a (supposed) highwayman on the way to her estate. After that, she imbues him with all the qualities of a knight in shining armour, despite the fact that he deliberately tries to humiliate her when he negotiates payment for his services as bodyguard.

While all this is going on – their mutual distrust, the revelation of a plot to injure (or worse) Elizabeth and her children, the sudden and unwelcome appearance of her dragon of a mother-in-law; Gideon and Elizabeth have various sexual encounters which do tend to be a little repetitive. Whenever she’s in Gideon’s presence, Elizabeth experiences tingles up her spine, breathlessness, breath catching in her throat, heat rushing … somewhere or other in her body – to such an extent I began to wonder if she was ever anything other than light-headed. And then there was the fact that we’d heard a lot about Gideon’s coldness and his inability to feel any of the finer emotions and then suddenly, he has developed feelings for Elizabeth and her young children that go far beyond lust or protectiveness. It’s not that I thought such a thing was beyond the realms of possibility – indeed, in a romantic novel, I’d expect it! I just didn’t get a sense of those feelings developing; they seemed to appear fully formed.

In terms of the narration, Ms. Underwood did a fairly good job with differentiating the characters and with her interpretation of the story. Her reading is generally well-paced and while she does have some quirks, such as the way she sometimes runs sentences together without taking account of the punctuation, I thought that for the most part, her choices were valid ones and, in most cases, gave a fairly naturalistic feel to that particular piece of the text.  Her performance of Elizabeth was especially good in that she did not voice her with a cut-glass accent, but gave her a slightly working-class (I hesitate to say cockney, because it wasn’t) edge which showed at once that as a romantic heroine, she was slightly different from the norm. It’s said in the story that although she had been a servant, her husband had provided lessons in deportment and elocution so that she would be able to fit in to local society more easily, and Ms. Underwood expertly conveyed the impression of a woman who had indeed had speech lessons but who had never completely made the transformation from flower-girl to duchess à la Eliza Doolittle.

Gideon was born and brought up in Scotland, and it’s mentioned in the text that he has an accent and Ms. Underwood adopts such with reasonable success throughout the story. I say “reasonable” because while the accent didn’t slip, there were times when creaky and clichéd dialogue, combined with the fact that this was a woman practically growling in a Scottish burr, did make me roll my eyes and shake my head.

All the other characters – the mysterious Mr. Smith, the returning Alex Weston (from Book 1), Will the footman, the dowager and her companion, and the two children are distinctly voiced. I didn’t have any problems working out which of the supporting characters was speaking at any point. Even given that Ms. Underwood doesn’t have a particularly large range when it comes to the pitch of her voice, I’m pleased to say that she portrayed the men fairly well and that they were all easily identifiable.

The mystery plot was fairly strong, but I felt the story was lacking in the romance department. I didn’t really feel any sexual tension between the protagonists and the sense of any connection between them at a deeper level was sorely lacking. It also seemed to me that there were more sex scenes in this book than you’d find normally in a historical romance (although I could be wrong). I’m no prude, and I have nothing against sex scenes in romance, but other than the first one, I didn’t feel they added much to the story or the development of the relationship.

Will I listen to this audio again?  Possibly, but it won’t be at the top of my “listen again” list.

Caz


Narration:  B-

Book Content:  C

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Historical Romance

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

 

To Capture a Rake was provided to AudioGals for review by Brilliance Audio.

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