Review of Rake With a Frozen Heart by Marguerite Kaye

Title/Author: Rake With a Frozen Heart by Marguerite Kaye
Publisher/Date published:Harlequin Historical, May 1st 2012
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "Waking up in a stranger's bed, Henrietta Markham encounters the most darkly sensual man she has ever met. The last thing she remembers is being attacked by a housebreaker — yet being rescued by the notorious Earl of Pentland feels much more dangerous!
Since the cataclysmic failure of his marriage, ice has flowed in Rafe St. Alban's veins. But meeting impetuous, all-too-distracting governess Henrietta heats his blood to the boiling point.
When she's accused of theft, Rafe finds himself offering to clear her name. Can Henrietta's innocence bring this hardened rake to his knees?"

This is kind of a hard book for me to review, cause I found myself rolling my eyes at a lot of things happening BUT at the same time it did bring tears to my eyes... GAH!

The thing is, a lot of what was going on in Rake With a Frozen Heart didn't seem to comply to the time period these characters were living in. I mean, as you may know, I've read a LOT of historical romance novels. And as such, I know a little about the rules that dictated the behaviour of basically everyone. So in my opinion a man and a woman who are not related sharing a room together for about a week is not appropriate for the time they were living in. Also, it annoyed me that Henrietta pretty much start off by calling Rafe by his first name, and he's an EARL. I mean, unless he grands you leave to do so, which he doesn't, as a lowly governess you don't do that automatically.

And I found myself wondering why Rafe doesn't seem to have servants. Most of the earls I've read about before didn't drive themselves from their estate to London.
Also, Rafe being an earl didn't seem to factor into anything except his having social influence and could scare someone into doing as he pleased when it was convenient. It's not once discussed that Rafe even considering marrying a governess would be looked down upon by society. And there's from the beginning zero distance between Rafe and Henrietta though I thought society would dictate their behaving otherwise, at least at first.

What I did like: this novel definitely brought the emotions! It was all 'He does not love me and I will not take anything less so I will be unhappy until he realises what a complete moron he's been!' AND I LOVE THAT! Seriously, things like that and the woman (or in rare cases the man) walking out on the hero (or heroine) brings tears to my eye almost guaranteed. And it did this time. It was wonderful, it was stomach-clenchingly good.

I really liked Rafe and for once there actually was a good reason for the 'rake' in question to have sworn off caring about women. I mean, can you say traumatic?? And I love any man that's good with babies ;)

I'm still kind of on the fence about Henrietta, cause while she's pretty smart and a governess, she also did some pretty well, airheaded things. She doesn't seem to think it's inappropriate to 'explore' a man's chest and abdomen while he's asleep when said man is not someone she's in a relationship with.
Also, she at one point thought the hero was 'endearing' when he was VERY drunk. And you guys, drunk people are not endearing. As Emily from Reading While Female said: 'Drunk people are only ok when they're your friends at a party with you, and you have also been drinking. Other than that? Bad.' And even friends can be annoying then.

Also, when she disappeared on the hero and was all like 'oh, it hadn't occurred to me you'd be worried when I LEFT WITHOUT A TRACE' *flutters eyelashes of wide innocent eyes* I completely sympathized with the hero and went GOD WOMAN! SERIOUSLY??
I did like that she stood by her principles, but most of the eyerolling I did at the story was because of her.

So there were things I loved and things I very much disliked but because it brought tears to my eyes I cannot bring myself to give it less than this rating.
My rating: 2,5 stars