(News and Book Review!) Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

I am so excited to share that one of my favorite books is on an incredible sale right now if you have an eReader! Sarah MacLean's "Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake" is $1.99 for the month of July through amazon.com. It's 436 pages of wonderfully written historical fiction (rated 4.4 out of 5 stars by 216 amazon users) and is published by HarperCollins.
http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Rules-Break-Romancing-ebook/dp/B003C2SP46/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

"Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake" is the first in Sarah MacLean's Nine/Ten/Eleven series and follows Calpurnia "Callie" Hartwell, the proper English miss, on her road to a more adventurous life. On the heels of her younger sister's engagement, Callie comes to the realization that following the rules for unmarried ladies have left her, first of all, single, but more importantly, unsatisfied with her life and the way things are going. She looks into her future and sees all of the things she doesn't enjoy but that she "has" to do--needlework, attending parties, dress fittings, teas--and decides that she has the rest of her life to follow the rules. For now, she wants to reach out and grab the life she has been denying herself for fear of ruining her reputation. Hence "The List" is born.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with historical romance, Callie's list is shockingly beyond the pale for a woman of her wealth, status, and--most importantly--her unwed state. She decides she's going to complete nine items such as drink scotch in a tavern, learn how to fence, attend a duel, gamble, smoke a cheroot, ride astride, all in addition to her most fear-inducing yet desirous item: kissing someone passionately. And she knows exactly who she is going to ask.

For the last ten years, Callie has been infatuated with Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston, who is known throughout London as a rake and a libertine. With a little sherry-induced courage, Callie finds herself on the steps of Ralston house in the middle of the night and led to the Marquess' bedroom, where she asks him to be her first kiss. Which he agrees to, but for a price.

The St. John family has had a little bit of an interesting surprise-- Gabriel and Nick, who are twin brothers--discover that they have a 20-year old half-sister from their infamous mother's marriage to an Italian merchant. Juliana Fiori will be staying in London with her brothers for the next two months (as part of an agreement that the siblings reached) and considering her age, Juliana must be introduced in London society. Who best to lead her through the intricacies and pitfalls than a pillar of the ton and an on-the-shelf, beyond repute spinster such as Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, the daughter of the Earl of Allendale?

This book--and series--are a favorite of mine and lead into the next of Sarah MacLean's series of the brothers of the Fallen Angel, starting with "A Rogue by Any Other Name." As a modern woman reading this story, I can't help thinking about how relevant Callie's story is to us today. Callie's list of things that constitute living should make us all want to evaluate our own lives to see if we are who we want to be at the end of the day because--as Callie shows us--our actions and choices determine who we are, not a silly set of rules or the lives we've lived in the past. Though smoking, gambling, drinking scotch, and kissing are not activities a modern unmarried lady is forbidden to do, we can all relate to the stigma associated with unmarried ladies and the expectations placed upon us by friends, well-meaning family members, and society in general. We do not have to live our lives in a way that will make us more attractive to a man in order to gain a husband; in Callie's case, doing the exact opposite and instead being true to herself was what, in the end, changed the course of her life. I love this story and all that it represents and I hope that you will too! Grab it while it's on sale and let me know what you think of it!