Miss Lacey's Last Fling by Candice Hern

Kindle cover (mine)

4 stars (or, since it's a romance, 4 kisses or roses)

I'm not entirely sure why I chose this book, other than the fact I read another Candice Hern book and I liked it enough try her books again.  It may have been that my best friend's name is Lacey.  It could have been the purple on the cover.  Whatever it was, I loved it, and just finished re-reading it.

Meet Rosie Lacey:  Oldest of six children  Raised the other five and has been running the house. Twenty-six years old.  She suspected she developed the same disease as her mother, and the doctor confirms it.  So, with whatever time she has left, she is going to London to cram a lifetime into a few short months.  She makes a list of all the things she wants to do and enlists the help of her scandal-laden aunt Fanny, who then gets the help of her late lover's son:

Print Cover

Max Davenant:  Rake extraordinaire.  Handsome.  You know the type.  Thirty-six.  His best friend had committed suicide, and he's considering following in his footsteps.  With Fanny's niece in town, the Season doesn't look like it's going to be so boring after all. 

The story:  Our dear dependable Rosie becomes the the fair Rosalind.  All the men are vying for her affections.  The stiff-necked matrons hate her.  Rosalind raced some curricles, waltzed without permission at Almack's, made tabloid covers, flirted dangerously with a rake (well, more than one), attended a masquerade, and even went inside a gaming hell and learned to play hazard.

Read no farther if you're interested in reading this because I'm about to ruin the book.

Rosie finds out she's not dying.  Rosie tries to kill Rosalind though.  She heads back to the country, leaving a very broken-hearted Max in her wake.

So, Fanny feigns illness and Rosie comes rushing back to London.  

The worst part of the whole book was when Max's friend's suicide note drops out of his pocket and Rosie picks it up.  She doesn't know what it is and later reads it.

Thinking Max wrote it, she rushes to his house to find him holding a razor to his neck...

"Don't do it, Max!"

When Max realizes what she thinks, he goes along with it.  This is one of those situations, had he told the truth, she would've slapped him for worrying her and the reader would've thought, "You should've just went with it, man."

So Max goes with it and convinces her to marry him.  The book does imply though that he does tell her the truth. Later.  Much later.  And then, after the couple plans this big fancy wedding with all the stops and all the guests have arrived, they elope.

Okay, you can look now.  

All in all, it's a pretty good story.

“All romantic novels end the same way, but it's the process of getting there that provides all the enjoyment.”
― Candice Hern, A Proper Companion

A Proper Companion was the first book I'd read by Candice Hern.  Most of her books (or all) are available on Kindle for really cheap.

Candice Hern is usually compared to Georgette Heyer.  Her website is considered one of the best for Regency information.

I don't make it a habit to review romances on here, I usually just worry about the fantasy and most of the YA, but since I re-read this one within a month of reading it the first time, I decided to review it.  It's the kind of book I want to talk about.