A review by sbelasco40
The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham

5.0

Okay first of all, the cover of this book is SO MUCH. But also I think its extreme romance-novel-ness doesn’t reflect how much this book subverts a lot of the more frustrating romance novel cliches. For one thing Seraphina is a complex and flawed heroine who never has to sacrifice any of her complexity to fall in love, which I enjoyed so much. I also honestly enjoyed how moving beyond her traumatic past meant reckoning with her own anger, while her lover had to learn how to convert shame and guilt over his own desire into an understanding of what he could control versus what he couldn’t. Also her friends were so great? I don’t remember reading many other historicals where the friend groups were quite so well rendered, though I don’t know why. Overall: A++ read.