Rowena’s review of The Infamous Rogue by Alexandra Benedict.
Hero: Captain James Hawkins
Heroine: Miss Sophia Dawson
Grade: 3 out of 5
They paid no mind to society’s prying eyes . . .
The daughter of a wealthy bandit, Sophia Dawson once lost herself in the arms of Black Hawk, the most infamous pirate ever to command the high seas. But now, determined to put her sinful past behind her, she prepares to enter society as the bride of a well-born nobleman who knows nothing of her scandalous youth. All goes according to plan until her ex-lover—now a respectable sea captain but just as handsome and dangerous as ever—appears and once again tempts her with desire.
From the moment he sees Sophia again, James Hawkins wants only one thing: Revenge. He’ll see to it that the reckless beauty pays for abandoning their heated affair. And so begins a battle of wills that can end only in utter ruin . . . or wicked surrender . . .
I was poking around in my TBR pile and came across this book. I haven’t read a pirate book before so I decided to read this one and while I did enjoy it, this book didn’t exactly blow me away. There were quite a few things that drove me bat shit crazy while reading this book. The hero being one of them.
The hero is an ex-pirate who quit the pirating business and is trying to be a good law abiding member of the ton because him and his brothers don’t want to make their newly married Duchess of a sister look bad. They don’t want to cause a scandal that will touch their sister so they’ve each cleaned up their act and are trying to find themselves in this new world that they’re not used to. James is the oldest at forty years old and this is his story.
James was better known as Captain Black Hawk and when we first meet him, he’s this bitter old man who is acting like an adolescent little child who got his toys taken away from him. He wouldn’t marry Sophia so she left him, he gets all pissed off and is totally bitter about it and the fighting that went on between him and Sophia got to be a bit much to take …at first. As the story goes on and we see these two fighting their attraction for each other, I wanted to karate chop Black Hawk in his kneecaps and smack Sophia around a few times.
As the book wore on, I couldn’t seem to connect with either of the main characters because they just got on my nerves but the story itself wasn’t a bad one. This story made me so hot dang glad that I’m not a historical woman who has to be dependent on a husband for respect and every other damn thing in this world. The stuff that Sophia was putting herself through to get engaged to the earl made me feel sorry for her.
The story ended the way it was supposed to end but the journey there was a troubled and drama filled journey. I didn’t think the book was a bad book, I just couldn’t connect with either James or Sophia much and I spent most of the book wishing that there was more of Quincy in this book. I really enjoyed the brief encounters we had with James family. I wanted to see more of their time in Jamaica, I wanted to see more of their pirating days and well, I didnt’ get that so it kind of sucked for me.
If Mrs. Benedict were to write Quincy’s book (does anyone know if she’s going to write it?) I will definitely be interested in reading either Quincy or William’s book but that’s really about it. I enjoyed most everything else in the story but the hero and the heroine drove me crazy. Would I recommend this book to anyone? If you’re an AB fan then you would probably enjoy this book and if you don’t mind a 40 year old hero acting like a petulant child for half of the book then yeah, you might enjoy it but aside from some interesting family members, this book was just good…not the great read that I was hoping for.
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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