Sarah St. John really rather loathes rakes. The self-satisfied smirks. The sly predatory gazes. Oh, and the constant witty banter rife with double meaning. But in the spirit of the season, she'll welcome this admittedly handsome viscount into her home. But as the snowstorm rages, the Yule log crackles, and the tension rises, Sarah and Adam find themselves locked in a fiery, passionate kiss. If love is the true meaning of Christmas, it's the one gift this mismatched pair can't wait to unwrap.
Comment: This is the last installment of the successful Maiden Lane series by author Elizabeth Hoyt. After ten full length books and a few novellas or free stories in between, the author completed and ended the series with two novellas, this one the very last.
In the last story of the series we finally have a romance for Adam, viscount d'Arque, a recurrent character who played a minor part in one or two novels. His heroine is Sarah St John, sister of the hero from book #5. They have met before but Sarah considers the viscount to be a rake and she cannot stand them or how they act among respectable young ladies.
They are forced to be civil to each other when his carriage has a problem and he sees himself stranded in a somewhat rural era practically on Christmas day and with his fragile grandmother next to him. The closest house belongs to Sarah's brother, where the family is going to spend Christmas and of course the viscount, his grandmother and their servants are helped and invited to stay until the weather improves or the carriage is fixed.
The viscount's grandmother is a little sick so they need to stay for even longer than what they had anticipated but the biggest problem is that the viscount never forgot Sarah had having her so near is not easy...
As it happened with the previous novella, I also found this one to be too short for the goal to be met. The author relies on the fact the characters are known to us from previous scenes but that alone isn't enough to sustain a well structured plot with emotional development. I mean, it can be done, I've read (very, very few) novellas where it does feel there's a beginning, middle and end but it's difficult to accomplish. I think that was quite a problem here.
Sarah and Adam are certainly a great couple and I do feel glad they managed to find happiness together not because they suit that much (I was not convinced of that) but because it's indeed nice to finish things with a HEA and a good enough closure sign; here we had two characters who were never key in any story but played an interesting secondary part so they feel like part of the group and it's good they can be together to unite the group even more. At least in the readers' imagination.
If they suit that much I couldn't really tell. She says she doesn't like rakes, he says he doesn't like prudish women but they feel attracted to one another. The author has tried to make them realize this but I don't think the romance was well succeeded, mostly because we haven't had the time to see it develop at a realistic pace. Just because they knew each other shouldn't have to mean their connection was so nevertheless.
Sarah has had a bad experience with a rake and that has colored her views on the subject. She also gets the advice from someone she trusts that she should open herself to happiness otherwise she would end up a bitter woman.
Adam has a reputation and he has always ignored it but now he feels there isn't anyone who could trust him, Sarah especially, to be a good husband. Their personal plights and how this could unite them even further was wasted, in my opinion, in the attempt to have them share intimacy but in this case the sex scene was dispensable and didn't add much to what was already a weakly developed story.
Pity the series ends like this. Both this and the previous novella had so much going on in terms of plot and how it could be developed. I can understand the page limit but especially with known characters perhaps there was something else the author could have done. To be honest, I think she should have just written a full length book for both instead.
This not being the case, it is what it is but it could have been better. What a joy, if I think back on the whole series, it was to rad about these characters and I'll certainly re-read my favorite scenes of them all.
Grade: 6/10
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