Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dreyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Drake's Rakes are a group of gentlemen in society that are working undercover to protect the Crown, and each has something going on in his personal life that effects his work. In the first book in this series, we meet Jack and Oliva Gracechurch. In reading their story, we were introduced to some friends; Grace Fairchild, Lady Kate, Lady Bea, Diccan Hilliard, Marcus Drake and Harry Lidge just to name a few. In this, the second book in the series, we catch up with Diccan and Grace Fairchild and find them being put to the test!

The story starts right were the first book ends, and find Diccan Hillard doing work for the Drake's Rakes which of course means that he is running afoul of the Lions group who is trying to kill the Duke of Wellington and toppke the crown with their own heir. Since Diccan is trying to out them, they feel the need to silence him, and not just that but to shame him and ruin his credibility, and so they plant a drugged Diccan in the bed of a drugged Grace! Oh the horrors, of the shame!

We start with them waking in the Inn together, completely in shock and it moves as they try to figure out who is pulling the puppet strings behind this sunt, who is part of the Lions and how to keep themselves safe with a man called "The Surgeon" on the lose and itching to destory Diccan and Grace in the process if he has too.

So much history, mystery and intrigue wrapped in one book, all the while, Diccan not wanting to be married is married to Grace, the plainist of all women, or so he thinks, and he is about to find out that the plainness has been a cover all along so that she can hide in the corners of society and not be talked about.

I love the way the author, Eileen Dreyer, makes you feel you are actually there, and this is no chaste 1815's version of life, this is real, they talk about real life and emotions and heroic acts as well as common place life, not the stuffy version of life you hear in history books. I loved the story, I loved the way it all twists and winds and we end up back at the house of Jack and Oliva Gracechurch to wind up this mystery, bringing us back to the first couple was wonderful! It just made it all so much more real and alive, because if these people were friends in real life, they would have been together again and again, and the book puts them together. I love it.

The reason I actually started reading this series was because I got a copy of the third book in the series from First Reads, and I am just that kind of person, but there was no way on earth that I could read book three without having read book one and two, now having said that, it is just me, you could actually read book three or two first and not miss anything in the story, it follows better in order, but you could pick up any book in the series and read it, they stand on their own quite well.

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