Take A Devil's Own Luck Interpreted By Rowan McAllister Depicted In Digital Copy

review will be identical to that contained within Rowan McAllister's Greatest Hits Historical as seen here sitelink goodreads. com/review/show



WARNING: rough sex, Literally throwing people around the room, Though it is consensual.

Timeline

This is the best story of the bunch, for me,



I really loved William, right from the start, He's a bit of a rogue, but he's a great main character and someone that I never lost interest in, He kept the story moving at a great pace and his friendship with Stubbs meant there was a lot more danger and action than in A Promise of Tomorrow.


Stylistically, it was as if two different people had written this story and A Promise of Tomorrow, The writing style was so different that I really was able to enjoy it, without the confused timeline of the previous story,

In terms of pros and cons, there was more positive influences in this story than negative, There were a few run on sentences, almost a paragraph long, and some small grammar mistakes, but they were so few and didn't interfere with the reading that I'm willing to overlook them.
They also have the story set in London, yet use the word “blocks”, Now, I don't know if this is because it's an American publisher or not, but no one in the UK would use “blocks” to replace streets, We have never had city blocks, in the's or now, so that's an anomaly, but I'm guessing from the American spelling that it's because of the publisher, so I'm going to also look past that.


The characters William, Stephen, Stubbs, Maud and Phillip were all great, They were all different, unique characters and each one had a purpose in progressing the story, Which, unlike the first, was full of surprises, excitement and kept me reading to find out what might happen next,

Overall, the entire story was engaging, funny and sad at times, while also being original and suiting the times,



FAVOURITE QUOTE

“Yes, little lamb, There is a wolf in the wood,
After only a moment, however, he saw Stephen square his shoulders and raise his chin, meeting William's eyes again in angry defiance,
The lamb has teeth, he thought with pleasure,”

Historical fiction is one ofmy favorite genres, Add the M/M romance angle and I'm definitely there, For the most part I enjoyed this though I'm so DONE with the slighter, slender foil to the bog strapping man trope, Why authors continue to perpetuate this fail is beyond me, Seriously, two equally matched men

can't possibly be lovers What I loved about this book were William's loyal servants, who deserved an entire book just about them, They were wellfleshed out and I was far more invested in their story than in William and Stephen's,.starsRainbow Awards Honorable Mentionfrom at leastjudgestars! Another great historical by Ms, McAllister. . I'm really liking her books, . . great plots, taboo romances from theth century with lots and lots of steamy sex, . .
William has lived a full life and experienced pretty much everything there is to offer, . but he is slowly getting to a place where he doesn't enjoy it anymore, And then he sees Stephen, the proud secretive young man who he just can't stop thinking of, The plot is a little "Indecent Proposal" inspired but there is such romanticism in the story, the slow wooing of Stephen, the family that William has created who are willing to support him through.
Yes, the mystery was a little anticlimactic but the ending was very sweet, I'm looking forward to reading Pip's story, Three and half

This had an interesting premise, if a little bit tropeypersonal companion being “lent” by someone to the main protagonist in exchange for a debt/hate and loathing inevitably turn to lust and then lurvebut I found it hard to get past the opening chapters to find out this much.


The opening I found very stodgy, and the exposition was hard going as it was almost entirely exposition, The beginning chapter was a bit bloated and made the mistake so many books do of explaining so much about the protagonist in one lump instead of just Getting On With The Story.

We are told so much and not shown it, when the first section of infodump could have been handled with just one conversation between the rakish William and his pompous brother Horace.
In fact it was a goodKindle pages hard to tell with ebooks! before a fact popped up to make this possible a different kettle of fish to so many stories set in London.


Sadly, the first chapter goes on in this vein, telling us so much that I began to find it rather tedious, We are told about Williams wife, Williams “secret house which bizarrely he lets his brothers carriage drive him to where also bizarrely his his servants, Stubbs and his wife, live and then, when the second chapter opens, hes at the opera and we missed out on the Stubbs interaction!

The second chapter doesnt open any more promisingly.
We are told how he had
“regretfully informed each of them three women of easy virtue nicknamed the merry widows that he had family matters to attend to, they had whispered promises in his ears and ghosted fingers across his body at every possible opportunity.
”

This all would have been better as showing, Added to the fact that William haswhen entirely alone and: in order:

Chuckled to himself
gave a small wicked smile
Shivered in mock revulsion
Gave a self satisfied grin
Shook his head
Stroked his chin
Shuddered
Smiled sadly
Shuddered again
Grinned a little in a graveyard
Grimaced again
Groaned and adjusted himself
Smiled in spite of his discomfort
Grimaced in distaste again!

I seriously fear for his sanityor his safety because anyone spotting him GURNING the way he is would consider him possessed.
All this in just over one chapter, I wish authors would use their observation and see how people behave when they are alone, They dont groan, smile, grimace etc etc, Not normally, at least and this just makes him look like a loony,

Then when he does seek out the man he wants to get some letters back from guess what Theres oodles of more DESCRIPTION, I can honestly say that by this point I was screaming at the book, wanting some actual showing, a conversation anything, Not just page after page of description,

In fact the entire scene of him arriving at the club and seeing his quarry, all of this is dealt with in description, Its just too much.

However, when eventually something starts to happen it turns into a solid readable erotic romance which Im sure that readers of the genre will likeand it does improve so much Im kind of wondering how the beginning wasnt clubbed by the editor.


The main protagonist, William, is just the kind of hero I like, a bit morally ambiguous, with a dark past who is street savvy and has feet in society and the mean streets.
I didnt mind the instantlove reaction he has to Stephen, because hes been alone, playing the dissolute loner, for a long time since he lost his muchbeloved wife.
Despite the stodgy start, I found myself eventually really wishing him well andthrough the book actually worrying how this would be achieved, despite knowing that it would.


Stephen could have been presented as a weepy wailing omega, but he isnt, Hes fiesty, angry and pricklyWilliam calls him his hedgehog and prefers him prickly to anything else,

Theres secrets which are quite rightly not revealed until the end, and by that point I was totally enjoying the book,

Technically there were a few issues, the editing isnt top notch, American booboos here and there like “block” and “whiskey” and “gotten” but I have to say that despite the doughy beginning
I enjoyed reading this and if you like a very erotic gay Regency, youll like this a lot.
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