#TBRChallenge 2024: The Raven Prince

The Book: The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

The Particulars: Historical romance (Georgian!), 2006, first in The Princes Trilogy, In Print

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Because everybody and their dead grandmother has read this book - except for, apparently, me. In fact, it's my first read by Hoyt ever. Look, I know. I can hear y'all screeching across cyberspace as I type this...

Spoilers Ahoy!

The Review: I have not been reading. And when I do try to pick up a book for some good ol' fashioned eyeball reading? I've been left feeling very meh about the whole experience. Part of it is me and part of it is the books.  That is until I dug The Raven Prince out of my TBR.  I didn't read this so much as inhale it in a matter of hours.

Anna Wren is a respectable young widow who lives in a respectable country cottage with her mother-in-law and an inept maid they hired to save her from the poorhouse. They've been muddling along alright since Peter's death, but the nest egg wasn't all that robust when he succumbed to a fever and now finances are getting tight.  Anna needs a job - the problem being that jobs are scarce for respectable young widows living in the country.

Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham, is the last of his line - scarred from a small pox epidemic that claimed his entire family as a child.  His first wife died in childbirth (the babe also perished) and it's past time for him to do his duty. He needs to remarry. He needs children. Certainly for the title, but also because deep down, Edward wants a family.  It's why he's back at Ravenhill Abbey, desperately hoping to recapture the sense of home he felt there as a child.  Instead all he's done is cement his reputation for having a bad temper and scaring off secretaries.  He's gone through two already, and he's ordered his estate manager to find him another in an obscenely short amount of time.

We all know where this is going. The estate manager is in a bind. Anna needs a job. Yes, it's highly unusual, borderline scandalous, to employ a mere female as a secretary, but she's a widow (no innocent miss) and frankly the estate manager has no desire to tell Edward he's failed in his mission.  After some minor spluttering and sparring, the arrangement is made. It also doesn't hurt that Anna is intelligent and the best damn secretary Edward has ever had.

I fell right into this story. Grumpy, growly Edward who has lost so much. A widowed Anna who spent her whole life doing the right thing only to end up with a husband who did-her-dirty prior to his death.  Working for Edward is just the first step in a series of choices she makes in this story that upends her perfectly respectable and boring life. What did doing "the right thing," "the expected thing," ever get her? She's done with that. She's going with her gut, and eventually her gut tells her she wants Edward.

One thing I've always heard about Hoyt is that she has a penchant for the Bananapants - and boy howdy, she does.  I loved the set-up but will admit my eyes crossed once we got to the brothel.  Yep, you guessed it! We get the heroine who hides her identity at an upscale London brothel so she can bang it out with the hero. They meet twice (!) and in Classic Dunderheaded Hero fashion, he has no clue who he is boning.  He went there to stop thinking about Anna, had the best damn sex of his life, and failed in his mission. Yep, still getting pants-feelings around Anna.  Then, of course, he figures it out some time later when they're back in the country.  And of course this all leads to a blackmail plot thread that leads to a duel (yes, a duel) in a brothel (yes, a brothel) at the end of the story 🤨

Oh, and did I mention the heroine believes she is barren because she was married for something like four years and never got pregnant?  But of course our hero has a Magic Wang - so just roll with it. 

(I'm actually more forgiving of this nonsense in historical romances because lack of modern medical understanding and all that).

Which makes it sound like I didn't like this book.  I did!  Did I mention I inhaled this in a matter of hours?  Also, there's even a delightful dog in this story - hence me finally reading it during Furry Friends theme month.  An agreeably affable (and giant!) wolfhound / mastiff mix that doesn't have a name until nearly halfway through when the heroine finally goads the hero into accepting one of her suggestions.

In the end, I rather enjoyed it. Some of the bananapants stuff was a bit out there, but I liked these characters, I liked them together, and the love scenes were suitably steamy.  I've already decided that I really need to do my best to plow through the rest of this series at some point this year.

Final Grade = B