Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

🍎🍎🍎🍎

So, it took longer than usual, but Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase is my first book read in September. I was super busy with reorganizing my place and building new furniture. I also was bingeing the Marvel podcast I'm obsessed with The Abingers. If you are into Marvel, definitely check them out. Every episode leaves me laughing and in such a good mood. But back to books. It took 7 days for me to pick up a book. Partly due to the push I made at the end of August. What got me back to reading was The Rake Appreciation Society. By the way, the meeting has been moved back to this Thursday the 16th. The book club is hosted by Crystal and Jen. Once the live show is up, I'll link it here. Lord of Scoundrels is the third book in Loretta's Scoundrels series and one of her most popular books. I was also able to apply this to the enemies to lovers trope for Fall in Love. Also, I did want to mention that I read this in both audio and eBook. Since I read about 55% of it in audio form, I've marked it as such since it was the larger portion.

Jessica arrives in Paris to collect her wayward brother. He's fallen into man crush and joined the friend group of Sebastian, Marquess of Dain. As he is a lot more wealthy, her brother has started to bankrupt the family. Once Jess meets Dain, there is an undeniable attraction between the two. After several encounters that turns everything Sebastian thought about society ladies on his head, they start to connect. With a lot of emotional trauma to heal and Jessica's straightforward nature, their relationship has a lot of back and forth.

I really enjoyed this and can see why so many people love this. I do think that the hype did get to me a little bit and I really enjoyed it. If I were to do a more specific rating, it'd be 4.5-stars probably. Jessica is pretty bamf and I enjoyed her character for the most part. There were a few times where I wish she understood the extent of Dain's trauma. I understood her pushing him and being strong in her beliefs, but I did want her to step back a little on her strictness when dealing with Dain. This was definitely an enemies to lovers story, which I'm not fond of. While that led to good tension and banter between the two, I wish that we would've move for firmly into the lovers area earlier. It took until about 70% for there really to be a shift in their relationship. Even then it didn't last long before a slip back. 

Dain suffered from a lot of trauma and I felt so bad for him. He was a damaged hero to perfection. The only part that really affected me emotionally was the beginning when he was a young boy and was learning that to want to be hugged and loved was not something to ever be wished for. I teared up and even thinking about it now is getting me all into my feels. I just wanted to hold that poor little boy and show him that he is wanted in this world. Like I said before, I just wish that Jess had realized earlier that not only he had some trauma, but how much was there. 

For an older historical, this was such a great option. I can certainly understand all the hype behind this book. If you're looking for an older historical without the typical problematic elements, certainly try this book. Loretta Chase has been on my tbr for awhile now and am happy to finally try her books. I certainly want to read the rest of the series, but I didn't feel weird reading out of order since they're loosely connected. I'll certainly need to move her backlist further up my tbr!

Have you read Lord of Scoundrels?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase, 4-stars, 2 days, Audiobook, 375 pages, published in 1995