REVIEW: LETTER FROM A RAKE BY SASHA COTTMAN

LETTER FROM A RAKE

Author: Sasha Cottman
Destiny Romance RRP $4.99
Review: Monique Mulligan 

Some light reading was just what I wanted on a recent four-hour plane trip and after ‘umm-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’, I settled on Letter From a Rake, a historical romance by Sasha Cottman. I ended up with a rather more entertaining read than I expected. A certain scene had me burst out laughing in the airport lounge and it was a little difficult to explain my mirth at that moment. Gosh, I thought, this may not be something I should be reading in public! As it turned out, the romance was not too spicy for plane reading, but a lot of fun.

Millie Ashton is Cottman’s unconventional heroine. Raised in India, Millie has moved with her parents to London, albeit unwillingly. She has no idea how London society works and after she gets a glimpse of the snobbery among her peers, she doesn’t really want to know how it works. All she wants to do is get back to India. To please her parents and help ease their transition back into society she agrees to attend a ball, where she befriends kindred spirit Lucy Radley, and is introduced to the Radley brothers, David and Alex, the Marquess of Brooke. Both brothers are handsome and considered to be great catches, but Alex is decidedly rude to Millie, embarrassing her on the dance floor in front of astonished guests. Millie is furious (her mother blames her for somehow offending Alex), as are David and Lucy, who cannot believe their brother’s rudeness; Alex, is mortified – the real reason behind his behaviour was unexpected and made it, well, hard to behave any other way. Note: this is the bit that made me laugh out loud and embarrassed to tell Blue Eyes why!

It takes a while for Alex to redeem himself; Millie is initially resistant to his overtures, but eventually allows a friendship to develop, trying but failing to ignore the heady call of physical attraction between them. She’s heard Alex is a bit of a rake and she certainly doesn’t want to be a notch on his belt! Alex is on a mission to convince her that what they’re feeling is love, and when circumstances take him away from London, he enlists the help of David to pen a passionate letter to Millie. What he doesn’t count on is the letter ending up in the wrong hands … will this spirited couple get together? Or will this letter gone astray ruin everything?

Letter from a Rake is a short, easy read with interesting characters, a funny conflict (at least for the reader, if not the characters) and plenty of (verbal and physical) chemistry between the leads. It was a great way to pass time on the plane and in the end, I wasn’t left red-faced – it’s saucy rather than spicy. I liked the way Millie was a woman ahead of her time (she’s read the Kama Sutra which most young ladies in London would probably not have heard of), not willing to fit in with everything society expected of a woman, without going too far; I also liked how Alex appreciated her differences, from her social awkwardness to her curvy stature (when her curves disappeared, probably due to stress, he was sad to see that).

If you enjoy romance novels, give Letter from a Rake a go. It’s a whole lot of fun. Letter from a Rake is available as an eBook from Destiny Romance, Penguin, Amazon, Apple iBookstore, Google Play, Kobo, Readcloud and Booki.sh. My copy was courtesy of Destiny Romance and NetGalley.

Bookish treat: Millie and Lucy bond over their love of food … cucumber sandwiches don’t really excite me, but little sweet tarts … love some!