Brek and Taylor were engaged but she left him at the altar to guide a Thrill Seeker trip. He is now engaged to a quiet sedate woman which is what brings Taylor home. When they meet again Brek tries to show how little she means to him. He learns a lot of things--especially that she is still important to him.

Also Taylor's sister Eve who runs the Thrill Seekers office finds romance with Brek's teammate Sloan. He thinks he'll teach her but she teaches him what is means to truly love. When it looks like he might lose her he goes big.

I enjoyed this book. I liked Brek and Taylor. I loved Eve and watching her get the better of Sloan. The other secondary characters are also good. I'd like to see read of their stories especially Kasen (I hope he has one.)

Reviewed for Wit and Sin

Two Rogues Make a Right is a tender, emotionally honest romance. Cat Sebastian doesn’t deliver sweeping drama, but rather quiet moments that have a hefty emotional impact.

Friends-to-lovers is a trope I adore when done well and Ms. Sebastian does it exceptionally well. Will and Martin are lifelong best friends and neither will hesitate to drop everything to come to the other’s aid. At the beginning of this story it’s Martin, who suffers from chronic illness made worse by the poor London air, who is nearly on death’s door. Will sweeps him off to the country to heal and close quarters becomes the catalyst for them to take a chance on becoming something more than friends.

Martin is a grumpy hero with a hidden soft side. His father was a monster whose actions have had a strong impact on Martin. After his father’s death, Martin lost everything and when combined with his chronic illness he often feels helpless and it’s understandably frustrating. He doesn’t want to be dependent on others but the life he was raised in left him ill-equipped to survive. I loved watching Martin evolve over the course of the story, to learn what he can do and to accept that it’s ok to ask for help. He carries deep guilt that drags him down and I loved to watch him learn, heal, and grow. Most of all, I wanted him to get his happily ever after with Will.

And oh, Will. The middle Sedgwick is sweetness to the core and wears his heart on his sleeve. He cares deeply, especially when it comes to Martin. Will was raised by a neglectful father and suffers PTSD from his time in the navy. Will is a recovering addict with issues of his own but he’s finding his way. The obstacles in the way of the romance are mostly internal, but nevertheless I was sucked into Will and Martin’s story. Every bump in the road to happily ever after felt organic to these heroes and their histories. I also love that this story features a bisexual (Will) and demisexual (Martin) hero and that consent and dialogue were key parts to the love scenes. Every aspect of this romance worked for me and thinking about the book a day after I finished it, I realized how much the small gestures in this story – a touch here, fixing an article of clothing there – made such a big impact and really make Two Rogues Make a Right stand out from the crowd.

Two Rogues Make a Right is the third book in the Seducing the Sedgwicks series. Since I haven’t yet read the first two books I did feel like I was missing a bit of background information, but not so much that the story was impacted. All in all, I loved Martin and Will’s story. It’s a romance with heart featuring well-drawn characters whose needs and desires are complex and interesting. I cannot wait to catch up on the Seducing the Sedgwicks series as well as Ms. Sebastian’s other works.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Rob and Linus are childhood friends who seem to want different things but a love holds them together. When Rob decides that he wants Linus, he has to convince Linus because Linus is sure that Rob will marry and their friendship will change causing him to lose Rob again.

I liked Rob and Linus. I loved the ease they felt with each other and how they were able to communicate. I also liked that Rob was willing to put it all on the line to help Linus understand he was serious. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.

Lady Derring Takes a Lover has such an unbelievably jaundiced view of the relationship between men and women -- and between the classes -- and I am 100% here for it. The titular Lady Derring meets with her solicitor after her husband's death, only to discover he left her destitute. While she's learning of her abject penury, her husband's mistress sweeps in, and learns that she, too, will not inherit a dime. They've been ruined by the same man, because it is a rare situation where women's fortunes are their own. Lady Derring and the mistress, one Angelique Breedlove (not her birth name), pool their limited resources and set up a boarding house in a building that once was a brothel known as the Palace of Rogues. 

The romantic lead doesn't appear except in snatches for a long, establishing opening -- this is the first in a series, so some groundwork must commence. Instead, in that interregnum, we are given a beautiful nuanced relationship between a widow and a mistress, one with so much heat I could see some furious slash written about these characters. Romantic lead dude is fine -- his major superpower is that he godamn listens -- but those women, gah, so hot. Which I guess tells you plenty about my predilections, you're welcome. 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

What mattered was she was standing, and that was very much in spite of the men who had populated her life.

Readers first met Angelique in Lady Derring Takes a Lover, first in The Palace of the Rogues series. A mysterious man had just arrived when we left the series and Angel in a Devil's Arms picks right up from that. It wouldn't be hard to start the series here, you'd miss emotional foundations between Angelique and Delilah (Angelique was Delilah's husband's mistress) but the author does a good job of revisiting Angelique's background and the romance between our leads starts here.

“I’ve had all manner of experiences and known all manner of people . . . I believe I can say with some authority that people become who they are more because of the pain they experience than the pleasure. And you, my friend, I do believe you carry about your pain the way you might carry eggs in your apron.”

Angelique popped off the pages for me in the first book and I was highly anticipating her story. Almost all of the story takes place in the inn she runs with Delilah and except for a slight revenge plot, this story is focused on character driven and the relationship between Angelique and Lucien. If you're a reader of Long, you'll know how beautifully she can turn a phrase and describe emotion, for example: He paused. She would not be surprised if it was because he heard her heart beating. He’d toyed with the rhythm of its since they met. He ought to know it the way a violinist knows his own instrument. Gorgeous writing. The story has many sentences like this, but I still ending up feeling a lack of connection between our couple.

Imagine a woman who could shorten his breath and blank his mind with just one curve of her lips.

Our hero Lucien was born a bastard but his Duke father started off very loving until he married and then he shunned Lucien and his mother. Lucien started to act out for attention which caused his step-mother to be embarrassed about him and possibly is behind assailants pushing him into the Thames. He gets rescued by a passing ship and ends up sailing the seas for ten years. We're told this and I think I needed some flashbacks of his time surviving, fighting, and building himself up to feel closer to his character. A developing relationship between Lucien and his half brother helped to add layers to Lucien's character and I can't help but already wish for the half brother's book. However, there wasn't anything that really stood out for me with his character and Lucien ended up feeling pretty benign.

But what surprised her most was the gratitude for everything, including all the heartbreaks, upheavals, betrayals she’d so far known. The wrong men had simply prepared her to recognize the right one. The seemingly wrong turns had led her precisely to where she wished to be.

When Angelique and Lucien are together, they do have some good byplay but the sparks just weren't there enough for me. The bedroom scenes were there but felt strangely short and rushed for what Long usually writes. A revenge plot ends up sputtering out and I just don't think the characters and their relationship was strong enough to carry the character driven focus. Angelique and Delilah have screen time together, more towards the end and I missed feeling their connection like I did in the first. The inn's guest are all here again and provide some comedic relief but secondary characters couldn't make up for the lack of punch I was missing between our leads.

Living one’s truth, it seemed, was more liberating than the false safety of no emotion or no risk. It was just so much easier to do when you knew you were loved.

Long has talent and skill for writing and describing human emotions and complexities beautifully and truthfully, but the breadth of the romantic relationship between Angelique and Lucien was missing for me. The epilogue sweetly sets up the next couple in the series and I'll definitely be reading it and hoping the setting can leave the inn more and our main couple will have more scope to their relationship.