Book Tour: The Passionate Love of a Rake by Jane Lark

Posted October 13, 2014 by Sally in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

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18687792 Title: The Passionate Love of a Rake (Marlow Intrigues #2)

Author: Jane Lark

Genre: Historical Romance

Period: Regency

Published: November 17th, 3013

Publisher: HarperImpulse

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

 

 

 

~ Synopsis ~

The only woman who had power over notorious rake Robert Marlow was now walking away from him, again.

He’d heard Sutton had died, and known Jane was free, but he’d always thought his desire would only be for revenge, not her. Yet here he was, unable to deny what he felt for her…what he’d never felt for any other woman before…

 

 

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 Review

 

I appreciate a good love story. I was always a romantic and loved romantic movies. When I was a little girl, I didn’t play house and I didn’t push a baby in a stroller. My best friend and I pretended that we had boyfriends. I don’t remember what kind of boy she liked at the time, but I do remember mine. I always wanted a boyfriend who had a motorcycle and wore a leather jacket. He was tough and could beat up any of the other boys in my class. I guess I knew from the beginning I wanted someone strong and very capable of taking care of me and protecting me from danger and harm.

This was what Robert Marlow wanted to be for Jane Coates or how she was known throughout most of the book, the Duchess of Sutton. Robert wanted to be everything for Jane. She’d been a survivor for so long, that she didn’t know how to ask for or accept anyone’s help. Especially Robert.

Robert and Jane grew up together and were best friends, inseparable. Later on, that friendship unexpectedly became more. By the time Robert got the nerve to ask Jane for her hand she was engaged to someone else. He left and never looked back. Years later they met again and not under the best of circumstances.

A widow after being literally trapped in a loveless marriage for too many years, Jane the Duchess of Sutton, wanted nothing except to enjoy her freedom. She had to play the role of a mourning widow, but deep down inside, she was happy to be free and angry at the years she had lost.

Her eyes faced her reflection, Jane Grey, the Dowager Duchess of Sutton. A dowager at the ripe old age of six and twenty. It was ludicrous marrying a man more than four times her age with a son over twenty years her senior. But her parents had thought only of the title and their financial security. They hadn’t given a fig for her happiness. She had been bartered off for profit.

Robert had a reputation of being a heartless rake and he didn’t plan on being anything else. After being betrayed by Jane, turning his feelings off and enjoying the company of women, was the only way he was able to live without Jane, and the life he wanted with her. He enjoyed a good chase, and was in the middle of capturing his latest female prey when the unexpected happened.

Robert’s gaze tracked Her Grace, Jane Grey, as she disappeared amongst the crowd. The only woman who had the power to disturb his equilibrium had just appeared from nowhere and was now walking away from him, again.

Lady Baxter had given him a rare opportunity for diversion by persistently refusing his attempts to persuade her. He’d been enjoying the chase. Yet now he’d seen Jane, it was like holding up a rock to a diamond. Jane’s superior beauty had always outshone every other woman in his head, and now he’d seen the reality again, he doubted any woman could ever appease the constant need in him for her, for Jane.

Jane Lark tells a wonderful story of love lost and found. The Passionate Love of a Rake is also about a woman who survived and would sacrifice herself for those she loved. Since I read book four first, I have now come full circle and have to say that this is one of, if not the best Historical Romance series that I’ve read in a long time. I’ve also noted that the common factor (for me) in all four books was the strong women. I love that Jane Lark gave these women a voice in a time when men ruled everything. They weren’t damsels in distress that needed rescuing. They rescued themselves as best they could and their men helped them get through the worst of it.

The author sucks you in from the beginning and makes you feel like you’re a part of the story. Once you’re finished you have to blink a few times to come back to reality. It’s the POV Ms. Lark writes in and how well she knows her genre. I loved Robert, but his nephew John is still my favorite!! I look forward to all future works by Jane Lark.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book directly from the author. I was not paid to read or review this book. All opinions are my own, and I was never influenced by anything or anyone.

Excerpt

 

To give her fingers something to do, Jane applied her black lace fan in a swift sweep beneath her chin and looked up at the call of a new arrival. The footman positioned at the head of the stairs, rapped his staff on the wooden floor and announced the guest whose name was swept away by the tune of the Venetian waltz flooding the room. Yet when the imposing male stepped forward, Jane’s heart stopped, as did the movement of her fan.

Lord Robert Marlow, the eleventh Earl of Barrington, was the last person on earth she wished to meet. Or perhaps – her heart set up a wild and anxious rhythm – he was the person she most wished to. But not like this, not in her blacks, when she did not look her best.

Blushing and lifting her fan a little, hiding the lower half of her face, Jane set it back into motion, cooling her hot skin and peering over its top, unable to tear her eyes away from him. She had not seen him for years, not since they had both been young, innocent and naïve. He looked different, more confident, stronger, more handsome too, and taller, and broader.

He surveyed the gathering from his vantage point at the top of the stairs as though he assessed and judged everyone.

She’d considered this meeting thousands of times in the years since their last and she’d pictured herself armored in sophistication, someone he would respect and admire. Yet, now, she felt everything the opposite.

The gulf he’d left in her life ripped open wider. He was magnificent – she insignificant. If he’d been attractive as a nineteen-year-old youth, he was a demigod as a man in his late twenties. His physique was muscular, yet lean and athletic.

His hand rose and swept long fingers through his chestnut-colored hair, swiping a loose lock from his brow. A gesture she had seen him do a hundred times as a child.

Still, he did not move, just looked, watching, appearing self-absorbed.

His confidence had not been there in the zealous, full-of-adventure and expectation youth.

She felt tears in her eyes and an ache in her chest, inspired by the could-have-beens and if-onlys which had haunted her throughout her married life.

It was a long time since Robert Marlow held her dear. In the intervening years, he’d toured the continent, establishing a reputation in the vices of a gentleman. His prowess in the sexual arts was renowned. He was no longer the young man she’d adored. He was a very different beast, one whom she’d no experience or knowledge to understand.

When he’d returned to claim his father’s estate a few years ago, his reputation had endured. He was one of, if not the most, profligate rake in the ton.

She’d never been able to stop herself seeking his name in the gossip columns of the papers Hector left lying on the breakfast table.

Robert’s gaze passed across the dancers and reached toward her. Jane turned, covering her face with the fan, hiding. She needed to regain command of her wits.

 

~ Purchase Links ~

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~ About the Author ~

Jane Lark reads at The Festival of Romance, 2013Jane is a writer of authentic, passionate, and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance, and a Kindle top 25 bestselling author.

She began her first historical novel at sixteen, but a life full of adversity derailed her as she lives with the restrictions of Ankylosing Spondylitis.

When she finally completed a novel it was because she was determined not to reach forty still saying, I want to write.

Now Jane is writing a Regency series and contemporary, new adult, stories and she is thrilled to be giving her characters life in others’ imaginations at last.

You might think that Jane was inspired to write by Jane Austen, especially as she lives near Bath in the United Kingdom, but you would be wrong. Jane’s favourite author is Anya Seton, and the book which drew her into the bliss of falling into historical imagination was ‘Katherine’ a story crafted from reality.

Jane has drawn on this inspiration to discover other real-life love stories, reading memoirs and letters to capture elements of the past, and she uses them to create more realistic plots.

‘Basically I love history and I am sucker for a love story. I love the feeling of falling in love; it’s wonderful being able to do it time and time again in fiction.’

Jane is also a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development in the United Kingdom, and uses this specialist understanding of people to bring her characters to life.

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