One Good Earl Deserves A Lover by Sarah MacLean

This was not Ms. MacLean's best book, a solid 3 out of 5 stars, but it is the first one out of 5 that I have not enjoyed 100% so I would say she is still pretty good.  In the first book of the series, A Rogue By Any Other Name, Penelope was so great that she made more than made up for the fact that Bourne was just an ass for 90% of the book.  In this one, Pippa just wasn't as interesting and Cross not as big of a jerk.  I mean, Pippa is scary smart and a great character, but almost one dimensional in the way that she couldn't see a way out of her engagement.  Cross's problem was that he was convinced he couldn't be happy since his brother had died and it didn't matter that it made Pippa unhappy too.  Now this type of plot line gets old fast since martyrdom is never attractive or interesting.  I hope that this isn't going to be the recurrent theme for Temple and Chase's books as well.

The initial premise was pretty good, but it just couldn't keep going past page 200 before something broke.  The countdown of 14 days also started out as intriguing, but the insights into Pippa's thoughts at the beginning of each chapter just weren't that interesting.  Castleton turned out to be a complete saint and definitely had more depth to him than anyone would guess.  In fact, I would love to read about his whirlwind courtship of Ms. Knight because there would be real conflict between his mother and her father.  Maybe it would be a good novella since we already know that it ends with HEA.


Ms. Maclean's first series, the numbers one, hooked me by her inventiveness and humor.  I think that is what was missing in Cross's story...the humor.  Here are some examples:


“Nick spoke again. "Her legitimacy will be questioned."Gabriel thought for several moments. "If our mother married her father, it means that the marchioness must have converted to Catholicism upon arriving in Italy. The Catholic Church would never have acknowledged her marriage in the Church of England.""Ah, so it is we who are illegitimate." Nick's words were punctuated with a wry smile."To Italians, at least," Gabriel said. "Luckily, we are English.""Excellent. That works out well for us.” (Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake)

“I've loved him for a decade. And I had him for one day before I made a complete and utter mess of things. Or he did. I'm still not sure about that.” (Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake)

She also always has very strong heroines and very rakey rakes (Yeah, I just made that phrase up), but Pippa was almost too off in a different world and Cross had given up being a rake.  I did approve of him changing his name from Jasper to Cross though.  I mean, Jasper????? 

I very much look forward to Temple's story.  I just hope she stays away from martyrs.