Wednesday

A Kiss from a Rogue by Elisa Braden

September 8, 2020
 
After nine books in the Rescued from Ruin series, I was ready for that series to end. Number ten in the series was A Kiss from a Rogue. This story involves a house party, a mystery, and an uncomfortable story line.

Ms. Braden has chosen to pair Hannah Gray and Jonas hawthorn. Both characters have appeared in previous books. Jonas is a Bow Street Runner, and he falls hard for Hannah in one of the previous books. Hannah is the half-sister of Phineas Brand. This story contains one of my least favorite themes: I’m-not-worthy. The, "I’m-not-worthy" attitude belongs to Jonas. Jonas is a lowly Bow Street Runner and he can never, ever, be good enough for Hannah. I do wish sometimes authors would stay away from class-system dependence. But, that’s one of the problems with historical romance novels. However, in this case Hannah was illegitimate, so I’m not sure if the “I’m-not-worthy” routine really works in this story. But I had bigger problems with this book. Hannah.

As I said, Hannah has appeared in a number of previous books, and she is a victim. She’s had tons of bad things happen to her. She’s been kidnapped, chased after by a killer, physically and psychologically abused. Hannah has a lot of issues, a lot of scars. Some of those scars show and some are hidden inside of her. She is leery of people, she doesn’t like to be touched, and she is a deeply troubled woman. Personally, I think the author has taken her too far down the trauma hole. But evidently, it just takes a couple of good hump sessions and all is resolved. I was uncomfortable with the quick manner in which she was able to participate in sexual antics. A few books ago, I realized that Hannah was going to have her own story. At that time I wondered how the author was going to do it. You see, Ms. Braden fills all of her stories with tons and tons of sex. Knowing that, and then seeing how troubled Hannah was, I was hoping the author would handle this book a little differently. I was hoping she would develop Hannah more, show us a gradual awakening. But, she didn’t. Once Hannah decided to marry Jonas, it was as if her previous issues never existed. Hannah’s recovery was toooo fast.

Then there were all the other characters from the previous books who showed up, plus all 50 gazillion of their children. This is the last book in a series and it shows. The character development of Hannah and Jonas suffered in the race to finish a series. This was not one of my favorites in the series.
 
Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Troubling

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