Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes

Literally one of the best books I've read this year.

I enjoyed the casual queerness of the main characters and their friends.

I enjoyed the very grey morals too! It was definitely a very different romance than I was expecting - majorly the FMC has just killed her husband and she has a baby too.

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wilybooklover's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

Ahhh, the Robin Hood references! I grew up about half an hour from Sherwood Forest and it’s always been one of my favourite legends, so I’m delighted to see the parallels in this story.

Rob’s blackmail letters to Marian soon turn into love letters, and his infatuation with her grows after she drugs him and ties him up only to ask for his help when she accidentally murders her husband. I just loved their dynamic; Rob’s laidback golden retriever nature versus Marian’s mean and prickly personality. He basically follows her around with heart eyes for the whole book (although briefly distracted by adorable kittens). Both Rob and Marian are bisexual disasters, and their interactions and relationship feel realistically queer.

The sex scenes were so well-done. Marian’s dislike of penetration isn’t treated as something to ‘fix’, or as though something is wrong with her. Instead they just work around it and find other sexy things to do together! It’s such a rare thing to see portrayed neutrally in a romance novel.

There were some great nuanced conversations about ethics in this — about having money, about stealing money, about murder, about motherhood — but they didn’t feel intrusive or unnatural to the narrative. The dialogue is as witty and clever as it was in Kit Webb.

I will admit I was a bit weirded out at Rob being the half-brother of Marian’s daughter and the son of her deceased husband, especially since he kept that info from her for longer than he really should have. But it didn’t bother me enough to impact my enjoyment of the story!

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beccaand's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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kers_tin's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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rachelditty's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I went into this with low expectations since I didn't entirely love the prequel. I can say very surely that I like this sequel more than I like Kit Webb, but it isn't very high on my list of enjoyed reads this year.

While I really appreciate how considerate Rob is with Marian, constantly checking in with her and making sure she's alright, be it while they're having sex or while they're robbing someone, there were times where it came across as a bit overbearing to the point of almost babying Marian. I know that's not what he was intending, and Marian never felt that way, but toward the end I wanted Rob to lay off a bit; she obviously knows how to take care of herself, and they both know it.

I think the romance in this story would have been a little more pulling if there had been less of a devotion to each other before they'd even met. We get the background that, because they wrote to each other, they really began to fall in love before they even met. It came across in much the same regard as with Percy and Kit in the sequel--both couples were infatuated with each other, and then suddenly they were completely in love. The only exception to this, I think, is Marian. She gives us the context that she hasn't felt safe in a long time, and Rob makes her feel safe. And I know with Rob it's kind of stated that he's been away from his friends for so long that he's latching onto the first person he feels comfortable with, but that's never really compiled into something stronger, at least not in a way that really felt satisfying to me.

One thing I really loved about the book was Marian herself. Her motives and attitude felt very grounded in reality, and the way she guided us through her thought processes felt real. I think something Cat Sebastian did really well was never explicitly stating what kind of sexual trauma Marian had; it was just a part of adjusting to she and Rob's intimacy. I think that subtlety could've been applied to Rob as well. I thought it was unnecessary for him to state plain and clear that he doesn't like small rooms because it reminds him of prison. It was clear enough in the context and in his character; I think that aspect would've been a lot more powerful if it was shown to us more instead of explicitly told.

The interactions between Percy/Rob/Kit/Marian could've been so much more, I thought, especially the interaction between Kit and Marian. I felt like they barely spoke and suddenly she was leaving her baby with him. I wanted to see more of those odd pairings--Rob and Percy, Marian and Kit--but we never really got it as deeply as I'd hoped before all four of them were being put into scenes together. I did really enjoy the epilogue, though, of all of them passing the baby around. That was cute.

I'm not a fan of sex scenes at all, just personally, but the communication between Rob and Marian was great to see. However, the segue into the final sex scene, I thought, was very sudden and a bit out of pacing.

Finally, and maybe this was because I was listening to it on audiobook, I thought the last third of the book was a bit confusing--I had a hard time following what Marian and Rob were doing, where they were going, and why they had to go there. That might've just been me though.

Not sure if I want to read more from Cat Sebastian after this. I know she writes explicitly about queer historical romance, and I think this is her first series for YA, so maybe her more adult series are a bit more fleshed out. Other people seem to really like this series, based on the 4+ star ratings on both books, but they're not really for me.

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stacy837's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is officially vying with The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics to be my favorite historical romance.

Here are some general things that I enjoyed:

Bisexual Robin Hood
Georgian setting (I’m getting really sick of most historical romances I read being Regency)
Cat
Kittens
Discussions of privilege and money and how to use wealth for good
Stealing from bad people
Horses
Classics
Rob and Marian are very enjoyable characters and I very much enjoyed them together

Sex- and relationship-specific things that I liked:

This is the first romance I’ve read between a cis man and a cis woman where PIV sex was not part of the equation
And they had a LOT of sex of all sorts of varieties
Rob’s general subbiness was fun
I loved the way they negotiated consent and talked things through
Great handling of both characters’ bisexuality but especially Rob’s

Things that I didn’t like as much:

Does Rob inherently have a stepmom thing because of this book? Also what is he to Eliza because oh god the family situation is convoluted as fuck
This book was really bad at locations. I felt like I never knew where the characters were until halfway through a scene and I’m not really sure what went wrong there

I liked this more than book one and would read more books featuring this band of chaotic queer highwaymen. If Betty doesn’t get her own book with a sapphic love interest I will riot (please Cat Sebastian, prove that you are capable of writing a full novel that’s sapphic. I believe in you and will like you less if you don’t).

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the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Though I like Rob and Marian separately as characters, the dynamic of the two of them together was kind of boring for me. The plot also dragged so I ultimately had no clear sense of where the story was going or what I was waiting for, which gave me the impression of the book's pace being very slow.

I did appreciate Marian's backstory of trauma and how the author worked that into the sexual scenes thoughtfully and with boundary-oriented solutions (without undoing the established boundaries, which often happens in romance stories with trauma-related boundaries).

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