A Good Rake is Hard to Find (The Lords of Anarchy)

Manda Collins’ latest romance, A Good Rake is Hard to Find, begins with a murder. While the opening scene is fast-paced and exciting, the rest of the story is anything but.

Lenora and Frederick, the hero and heroine, feign a betrothal to infiltrate an exclusive driving club and discover who killed Lenora’s brother, Jonathan. While both wish the betrothal would be real, Lenora knows she can never go through with it because of her inability to bear children.

The bland house parties and flimsy dialogue, with short bursts of mild action (a fight here, a horse race there), make the story agonizingly boring. Frederick has two best friends and Lenora has two best friends, but none of the characters have real personalities. There was nothing exciting or memorable to distinguish this from any other anachronistic “historical” romance.

I wanted to like this novel so much. The premise was interesting enough, and I enjoy romances that include another genre, such as mystery or science-fiction. I encountered the same issue with Collins’ novel, Why Lords Lose Their Hearts. Collins has proven her adeptness at writing action scenes as part of her novels’ prologues, but her stories thereafter leave me wanting more.