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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
Grudgingly giving this three stars. This didn’t work for me. There was way too much dwelling in the past and other than pining for each other I didn’t think they had anything in common as adults.
I’ve read the other two books in the series and I had trouble remembering enough for this book to make much narrative sense, so I don’t think it could stand alone.
Grace was dope as hell and I wish she hadn’t gotten saddled with a dude with that much baggage. They were pretty hot together at least. Sarah MacLean knows how to write a sex scene. “You are a queen and I am your throne.” Hot af.
I’ve read the other two books in the series and I had trouble remembering enough for this book to make much narrative sense, so I don’t think it could stand alone.
Grace was dope as hell and I wish she hadn’t gotten saddled with a dude with that much baggage. They were pretty hot together at least. Sarah MacLean knows how to write a sex scene. “You are a queen and I am your throne.” Hot af.
Spoiler warning! I don't think I'll be able to properly review this book without going into quite some detail about what I think worked, and in what ways the story just didn't deliver for me. So if you haven't read the book and would prefer to remain unspoiled about plot specifics, probably best if you skip this review.
Still here? Cool cool. [b:Daring and the Duke|35855655|Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #3)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572136222l/35855655._SY75_.jpg|57373072] is the concluding volume in Sarah Maclean's Bareknuckle Bastards trilogy. The man the rest of world knows as Robert Matthew Carrick, the Duke of Marwick and his half-brothers and the woman he loves knows as Ewan, has been the villain in the preceding two novels in the series, trying his very best to ruin his two half-brothers both financially and personally while trying to track down the woman they consider their sister and he, Ewan, loves obsessively. When told in [b:Wicked and the Wallflower|35695972|Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #1)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515028066l/35695972._SY75_.jpg|57185173] that she had died, Ewan's shattering grief turned to rage and he became unhinged and deeply destructive. By the end of [b:Brazen and the Beast|40221961|Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #2)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543966730l/40221961._SY75_.jpg|57373068], Ewan's quest for revenge against the two men with whom he shared a father, who he had trusted to keep his beloved safe and then was fooled into thinking had failed at that task, had ended up costing six people their lives and his half-brothers a considerable amount of money.
But of course, Grace, the illegitimate daughter of the former Duchess of Marwick (presented as a baby the world as Marwick's son and heir and her true identity hidden) never died. Along with the two men she's chosen to consider her brothers, she rules Covent Garden as Dahlia, the owner of an extremely profitable pleasure house catering to women. She's observed Ewan's increasingly more out of control attempt to find her and later to avenge her apparent death, and she's unimpressed. She intends to show him once and for all how little he means to her, crush his spirit and send him packing. But first, she personally nurses him back to health after the explosion he caused on the docks, which nearly killed Grace's brother's fiancée. Once he's strong enough, she stages a public boxing match, where he refuses to fight back as she beats him up.
She believes him to be gone for good and tells herself that this is fine. Of course, about a year later, he's back in London, claiming to be looking for a wife. He arranges a grand ball, with the sole intention of luring Grace into his presence once again. She lies to herself that as long as she's masked and disguised, hooking up with him won't be a problem. He shows up in Covent Garden with a big chest full of money to pay reparations to the families of the men he killed and starts doing manual labour on the docks for Whit's wife, to show that he's a changed man now and wants to make amends for all the damage he did.
This is the second of Maclean's romance trilogies where a really shitty duke needs to make amends and grovel on an epic scale to be a satisfying hero in the final volume. While the duke of Haven in [b:The Day of the Duchess|31307650|The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel, #3)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477616140l/31307650._SY75_.jpg|51979220] caused less death and destruction overall, I still found him even more loathsome than Ewan (who is at least super messed up because of the continual torture he was subjected to by his father throughout his life). I did not, however, feel that Ewan's grovelling and atttempts to make up for his former actions were enough to redeem him. I also found Grace's plan of first tenderly nursing him back to health only to beat him up publically to be deeply unsatisfactory. I will say that Ewan's final plan for getting rid of the family legacy he so detested to get his happy ending with Grace was pretty hardcore.
The reason this book is three stars is that I really enjoyed the presence of Devil, Beast and their interaction with the families they've now established. Otherwise, it's unlikely it would have gotten more than two and a half stars. Once upon a time, Maclean was an auto-buy and pre-order author for me. Now she's on "buy on sale", which makes me sad. I still like her championing the romance genre publically as much as she does, but it's been a long time since she wrote a book I loved as much as [b:One Good Earl Deserves a Lover|13424032|One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels, #2)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360543002l/13424032._SY75_.jpg|18886693].
Judging a book by its cover: I know some people really like these covers, I find them way too anachronistic. On this one, I love the cover model's stunning red hair (like our heroine Grace/Dahlia sports), but the dress is simply all wrong. First of all, I would have loved to see a cover model wearing what Grace/Dahlia wears for most of the book, tight breeches, leather boots, elaborate silk corsets with a fancy overcoat. If Avon felt they had to put the cover model in a dress, they could have at least tried to find something that didn't look like a prom dress made from a rain slicker. Grace/Dahlia does wear a GOLDEN gown at one point in the book, but it looks nothing like the dress portrayed on the cover, nor is it bright canary yellow. Yellow and gold are NOT the same colour!
Still here? Cool cool. [b:Daring and the Duke|35855655|Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #3)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572136222l/35855655._SY75_.jpg|57373072] is the concluding volume in Sarah Maclean's Bareknuckle Bastards trilogy. The man the rest of world knows as Robert Matthew Carrick, the Duke of Marwick and his half-brothers and the woman he loves knows as Ewan, has been the villain in the preceding two novels in the series, trying his very best to ruin his two half-brothers both financially and personally while trying to track down the woman they consider their sister and he, Ewan, loves obsessively. When told in [b:Wicked and the Wallflower|35695972|Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #1)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515028066l/35695972._SY75_.jpg|57185173] that she had died, Ewan's shattering grief turned to rage and he became unhinged and deeply destructive. By the end of [b:Brazen and the Beast|40221961|Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #2)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543966730l/40221961._SY75_.jpg|57373068], Ewan's quest for revenge against the two men with whom he shared a father, who he had trusted to keep his beloved safe and then was fooled into thinking had failed at that task, had ended up costing six people their lives and his half-brothers a considerable amount of money.
But of course, Grace, the illegitimate daughter of the former Duchess of Marwick (presented as a baby the world as Marwick's son and heir and her true identity hidden) never died. Along with the two men she's chosen to consider her brothers, she rules Covent Garden as Dahlia, the owner of an extremely profitable pleasure house catering to women. She's observed Ewan's increasingly more out of control attempt to find her and later to avenge her apparent death, and she's unimpressed. She intends to show him once and for all how little he means to her, crush his spirit and send him packing. But first, she personally nurses him back to health after the explosion he caused on the docks, which nearly killed Grace's brother's fiancée. Once he's strong enough, she stages a public boxing match, where he refuses to fight back as she beats him up.
She believes him to be gone for good and tells herself that this is fine. Of course, about a year later, he's back in London, claiming to be looking for a wife. He arranges a grand ball, with the sole intention of luring Grace into his presence once again. She lies to herself that as long as she's masked and disguised, hooking up with him won't be a problem. He shows up in Covent Garden with a big chest full of money to pay reparations to the families of the men he killed and starts doing manual labour on the docks for Whit's wife, to show that he's a changed man now and wants to make amends for all the damage he did.
This is the second of Maclean's romance trilogies where a really shitty duke needs to make amends and grovel on an epic scale to be a satisfying hero in the final volume. While the duke of Haven in [b:The Day of the Duchess|31307650|The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel, #3)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477616140l/31307650._SY75_.jpg|51979220] caused less death and destruction overall, I still found him even more loathsome than Ewan (who is at least super messed up because of the continual torture he was subjected to by his father throughout his life). I did not, however, feel that Ewan's grovelling and atttempts to make up for his former actions were enough to redeem him. I also found Grace's plan of first tenderly nursing him back to health only to beat him up publically to be deeply unsatisfactory. I will say that Ewan's final plan for getting rid of the family legacy he so detested to get his happy ending with Grace was pretty hardcore.
The reason this book is three stars is that I really enjoyed the presence of Devil, Beast and their interaction with the families they've now established. Otherwise, it's unlikely it would have gotten more than two and a half stars. Once upon a time, Maclean was an auto-buy and pre-order author for me. Now she's on "buy on sale", which makes me sad. I still like her championing the romance genre publically as much as she does, but it's been a long time since she wrote a book I loved as much as [b:One Good Earl Deserves a Lover|13424032|One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels, #2)|Sarah MacLean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360543002l/13424032._SY75_.jpg|18886693].
Judging a book by its cover: I know some people really like these covers, I find them way too anachronistic. On this one, I love the cover model's stunning red hair (like our heroine Grace/Dahlia sports), but the dress is simply all wrong. First of all, I would have loved to see a cover model wearing what Grace/Dahlia wears for most of the book, tight breeches, leather boots, elaborate silk corsets with a fancy overcoat. If Avon felt they had to put the cover model in a dress, they could have at least tried to find something that didn't look like a prom dress made from a rain slicker. Grace/Dahlia does wear a GOLDEN gown at one point in the book, but it looks nothing like the dress portrayed on the cover, nor is it bright canary yellow. Yellow and gold are NOT the same colour!
Oh man I really wanted to love this book. I loved the first book in the series -- Wicked and the Wallflower -- and Felicity is one of my top 5 heroines ever. I enjoyed the second book too, although I found it a bit long.
I think you have to know what you're getting here. This is a grovel book. If you've read the previous books (and you should, this does not work as a stand-alone), you know that Ewan messed up. Understatement. He's done some incredibly bad things and treated people horribly.
And for me, the grovel was not enough. We don't SEE Ewan become a better man on the page. He does that off-page, and that it makes incredibly difficult for me to trust that he's grown and deserves forgiveness/redemption. Especially because Grace, our other POV, is so incredibly biased. She still loves him, from page 1, so I find her view of him hard to trust.
So in the end, what Sarah was going for here--Ewan's redemption--fails for me. The writing and world-building was great, and I really enjoyed seeing all the other characters. It was compulsive writing. But I didn't believe in Ewan as a character, and I didn't believe in him as a partner for Grace, so as a romance, it didn't work for me.
**Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.**
I think you have to know what you're getting here. This is a grovel book. If you've read the previous books (and you should, this does not work as a stand-alone), you know that Ewan messed up. Understatement. He's done some incredibly bad things and treated people horribly.
And for me, the grovel was not enough.
So in the end, what Sarah was going for here--Ewan's redemption--fails for me. The writing and world-building was great, and I really enjoyed seeing all the other characters. It was compulsive writing. But I didn't believe in Ewan as a character, and I didn't believe in him as a partner for Grace, so as a romance, it didn't work for me.
**Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.**
Easily the worst book in the series. This was honestly just pretty uninteresting and imo Grace should've ended up with a woman.
I was excited to read this story but also very nervous. This book is about Grace, the third member of the Bareknuckle Bastards, but Ewan (the hero in this story) was the villain for the first two books and I wasn't sure how Sarah MacLean was going to make me NOT hate him. To her credit, I got to that place relatively quickly.
However. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about this book.
Grace fell extremely flat for me - she was touted as this badass Queen of Covent Garden, she runs a brothel where women can come for pleasure, she can literally fight people - but there wasn't anything in this book that stood out to me where I thought, "oh yeah, she IS a badass." I had a better impression of her from the first two books than in her own story.
I won't do spoilers, but there were two big issues that needed to be addressed in this story: 1) why Ewan betrayed Dev, Whit, and Grace when they were young, and 2) making amends for that.
1) This is probably what made me the angriest in this story. The reason (again, no spoilers) was the thinnest storyline I've ever seen in a Sarah MacLean novel - it was something I was able to easily assume, yet it was presented as a shock and awe factor, and Dev, Whit, and Grace were blown away by the reason. These three basically run multiple London underground operations, Grace talks about how they spent WEEKS trying to figure out why Ewan betrayed them, but somehow were not able to figure out this super obvious reason? Bullshit.
2) Okay. I've seen a lot of people talking about how Ewan grovels and pays, and makes amends. Let's be clear - in NO WAY whatsoever, does this man grovel. He is patient, he repeatedly asks Grace what she wants/needs, and he lets her come to him. However, all the work he does to "become a better man," is done off page, and is never discussed in detail; Grace and Ewan talk so much about the growth he did but we don't SEE it. For two books we are sold on how Ewan was a MONSTER, but in this story he goes away for awhile, comes back better, gives a flimsy excuse for why he betrayed them, and now all is good? Yikes.
The best part of this book for me was the banter between the siblings, specifically Dev and Whit - some of which were conversations Grace wasn't even involved in! I still love Sarah MacLean, and I knew this book would be a leap, but I didn't expect it to fall so completely short.
Two and a half stars from me.
However. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about this book.
Grace fell extremely flat for me - she was touted as this badass Queen of Covent Garden, she runs a brothel where women can come for pleasure, she can literally fight people - but there wasn't anything in this book that stood out to me where I thought, "oh yeah, she IS a badass." I had a better impression of her from the first two books than in her own story.
I won't do spoilers, but there were two big issues that needed to be addressed in this story: 1) why Ewan betrayed Dev, Whit, and Grace when they were young, and 2) making amends for that.
1) This is probably what made me the angriest in this story. The reason (again, no spoilers) was the thinnest storyline I've ever seen in a Sarah MacLean novel - it was something I was able to easily assume, yet it was presented as a shock and awe factor, and Dev, Whit, and Grace were blown away by the reason. These three basically run multiple London underground operations, Grace talks about how they spent WEEKS trying to figure out why Ewan betrayed them, but somehow were not able to figure out this super obvious reason? Bullshit.
2) Okay. I've seen a lot of people talking about how Ewan grovels and pays, and makes amends. Let's be clear - in NO WAY whatsoever, does this man grovel. He is patient, he repeatedly asks Grace what she wants/needs, and he lets her come to him. However, all the work he does to "become a better man," is done off page, and is never discussed in detail; Grace and Ewan talk so much about the growth he did but we don't SEE it. For two books we are sold on how Ewan was a MONSTER, but in this story he goes away for awhile, comes back better, gives a flimsy excuse for why he betrayed them, and now all is good? Yikes.
The best part of this book for me was the banter between the siblings, specifically Dev and Whit - some of which were conversations Grace wasn't even involved in! I still love Sarah MacLean, and I knew this book would be a leap, but I didn't expect it to fall so completely short.
Two and a half stars from me.
emotional
hopeful
relaxing
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the third book in the Bareknuckle Bastards trilogy, and you absolutely must read the first two books to fully appreciate this one. Grace and Ewan's story had been teased throughout.
Some tropes and themes included are:
-Childhood loves to enemies to lovers
-Longing, pining, long-lost-love
-Class difference (sort of)
-Morally/legally dubious characters (brothel running, smuggling, pugilism)
-Grovelling, making amends, and redemption
-Found family
The conflict in this book is mostly internal and emotional. For about 80% of the book not a lot happens externally, because so much is happening internally. Grace and Ewan have a difficult and complicated history that they're working out. The author does a good job with the character development and a fantastic job with the relationship development.
On the romance heat scale this is moderately hot: explicit sex on the page, but nothing especially shocking.
Some tropes and themes included are:
-Childhood loves to enemies to lovers
-Longing, pining, long-lost-love
-Class difference (sort of)
-Morally/legally dubious characters (brothel running, smuggling, pugilism)
-Grovelling, making amends, and redemption
-Found family
The conflict in this book is mostly internal and emotional. For about 80% of the book not a lot happens externally, because so much is happening internally. Grace and Ewan have a difficult and complicated history that they're working out. The author does a good job with the character development and a fantastic job with the relationship development.
On the romance heat scale this is moderately hot: explicit sex on the page, but nothing especially shocking.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Child abuse, Violence
Minor: Mental illness
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I received this book as an ARC from Edelweiss and the publisher. All views are my own.
Sarah MacLean has quickly become one of my favorite romance authors in the weird, pandemic inspired binge that led me to read -quick count- about 77 romance novels in less than 2 months. Depression is weird and romance novels are happy, okay? Anyways, I had high hopes for this book because Grace and Ewan's relationship had been built up over the first two books. When I saw it on Edelweiss, I hit "Request" so fast I think I broke my mouse. Plotwise, I had some issues--after such a slow burn and so much baggage, I expected the plot to make Grace and Ewan to fight for it a bit more. However, because of all that slow burn and baggage, it was definitely fierier than the first two books. (That pun is intended. Read it to see what I mean.)
You can look forward to a video about those 77 reads and a follow up on Sarah MacLean herself, coming soon to my YouTube channel!
Sarah MacLean has quickly become one of my favorite romance authors in the weird, pandemic inspired binge that led me to read -quick count- about 77 romance novels in less than 2 months. Depression is weird and romance novels are happy, okay? Anyways, I had high hopes for this book because Grace and Ewan's relationship had been built up over the first two books. When I saw it on Edelweiss, I hit "Request" so fast I think I broke my mouse. Plotwise, I had some issues--after such a slow burn and so much baggage, I expected the plot to make Grace and Ewan to fight for it a bit more. However, because of all that slow burn and baggage, it was definitely fierier than the first two books. (That pun is intended. Read it to see what I mean.)
You can look forward to a video about those 77 reads and a follow up on Sarah MacLean herself, coming soon to my YouTube channel!
Grace has been forced into hiding all her life. Born a woman and deemed a mistake, her father hid her existence and forced his male bastards to fight for her title. After 20 years in hiding Grace, now known as Dahlia, is now able to live freely, or so she thought. Now her childhood love turned adversary, Ewan posing as the rightful heir of Marwick, has returned to London, and is searching for a wife. Grace must decide what to do with the maelstrom of emotions she still has for Ewan, all while her empire in Covent Gardens is under threat of attack.
In the third book of the Bareknuckle Bastards series, we get a good look at Grace/Dahlia and Ewan/the Duke of Marwick. Sarah MacLean does a great job of drawing the reading in and utilizing her well-developed characters from previous series. Every time I pick up a new book in the Bareknuckle Bastards series, I find myself wishing I had re-read all the previous books so I can lose myself in the series. Like the other books in this series, this is bound to be the historical romance pick for the summer of 2020.
The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required for any ARC received.
In the third book of the Bareknuckle Bastards series, we get a good look at Grace/Dahlia and Ewan/the Duke of Marwick. Sarah MacLean does a great job of drawing the reading in and utilizing her well-developed characters from previous series. Every time I pick up a new book in the Bareknuckle Bastards series, I find myself wishing I had re-read all the previous books so I can lose myself in the series. Like the other books in this series, this is bound to be the historical romance pick for the summer of 2020.
The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required for any ARC received.
emotional
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes