DNF Review: Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dreyer

Tracy’s review of Never a Gentleman (Drake’s Rakes #2) by Eileen Dreyer

This review contains what some people would consider spoilers.

HE HIDES HIS TRUE COLORS . . .
Miss Grace Fairchild is under no illusions about her charms. Painfully plain, she is a soldier’s daughter who has spent her life being useful, not learning the treacherous ways of the ton. She may have been caught in a scandal with society’s favorite rogue, but how can she marry him when it means losing herself?

WHILE SHE HIDES HER TRUE SELF . . .
Diccan Hilliard doesn’t know which of his enemies drugged him and dumped him in Grace’s bed, but he does know the outcome. He and Grace must marry. To his surprise, a wild, heady passion flares between them. Yet Diccan is trapped in a deadly game of intrigue Grace knows nothing about. Will his lies destroy Grace just as he realizes how desperately he needs her? And how can he hope for a future with her, when an old enemy has set his murderous sights on them both?

Grace Fairchild and Diccan Hilliard have been duped. They’ve woken up in bed together – both naked – but neither have memories of what happened. Diccan, that last he remembered was on a ship to Dover.

Diccan decides to marry Grace as there are so many witnesses to the scandal but Grace doesn’t want to be married. She wants to go off to her home and just be. She wants to decorate the way she wants, raise horses and live the way she wants, which is something she’s never done. But Diccan and a regiment of soldiers (Grace’s friends) insist and so Grace and Diccan marry and head off to London so that Diccan can get back to work as a diplomat and Grace and set up housing for them. But all is not as it seems. There is the evil “Surgeon” who we heard about in the last book who has escaped from Newgate prison and is on the loose. Diccan must make the public believe that he has no care for Grace so that she can’t be used against him by his enemies.

I have to tell you that I only read 266 of the 400 pages in this book. From the beginning of the book I had real problems with Diccan. He liked Grace as a person, but Grace is quite plain-faced and apparently that was something he couldn’t quite handle. Diccan shuddered at the thought of marrying her and the thought of bedding her made his balls shrivel. Nice. He thought horribly nasty thoughts about Grace but was nice to her to her face and actually defended her to others. But did that make him a better person when he was revealing so much about his shallow personality in his thoughts? Once the couple got to London Diccan did a disappearing act on a regular basis (because of the whole enemy issue) and was actually sleeping with his mistress. Yes, he was doing it because he was getting information from her but he was still cheating on Grace and that made me dislike him even more – the bastard. My heart, while reading, actually ached for the pain that Grace was going through and I felt so horrible for the fact that she had to live through these circumstances.

So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back with this book? Grace’s uncle approaches her and states that he has information that Diccan is a traitor to England. The uncle takes Grace to a house where someone from the Home Office takes her to a room where they can see into the next house. Diccan is there with his mistress and they’re having sex and talking about things that indeed show that he could be a traitor (but we know otherwise). When Diccan arrives home the next morning does Grace confront him, call him a cheating rat bastard who can burn in hell for all she cares? No, she states to him that she wants him to do the sexual things to her that he was doing to his mistress. With that scene I lost all respect for Grace and decided that frankly I didn’t care what happened between this pair.

I’m sure that everything ended up just peachy dandy for Grace and Diccan at the end of the book – he became who she truly wanted him to be, he fell madly in love with her and they all lived HEA, but the way this couple was acting was just not something I want to read about in my romance novels. Yes, I like angst and conflict as well as the next person but after a hero has acted so badly there is really nothing he could have done that would have redeemed himself in my eyes.

Please remember: these are my thoughts on this book and others may feel differently.

DNF

The Series:

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Forever. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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