The HR Addict

“I require ruination”

That’s no ordinary request, but then Lady Philippa Marbury, aka Pippa, is no ordinary woman. That much was already clear in the first book of the series, which introduces the tall, slender young woman with glasses, big blue eyes, and blonde hair as the sister of Penelope Marbury — by now the Marchioness of Bourne.

Here we follow the story of the younger sister, engaged to the Earl of Castleton in a marriage of pure convenience with a young man who owes little to intelligence. Counting down the days until her life changes forever through the bonds of matrimony, Pippa decides to invade the den of gambling and ruin, The Fallen Angel, with a very specific request directed at one of its owners.

Cross (aka Jasper Arlesey, Earl of Harlow) is thus caught completely off guard when, one day, well into the morning, he wakes to find Pippa in his study with a proposal for collaboration… scientific, of course. Because Pippa is a woman of science, ahead of her time, and has therefore always felt out of place, misunderstood. And on the eve of her wedding, if society insisted on keeping her in the dark about what happens in the bedroom between a man and a woman, why not choose a man known for his experience seducing women to clear up all her doubts? On a theoretical level, of course. Like the good scientist she is.

Even so, it’s hardly respectable for a young woman about to be married to seek out a man to explain to her the mechanics of physics between two human beings — but Pippa has no illusions about how her idiosyncrasies are viewed by those around her. One of my favourite passages is when the author describes the moment, back in the protagonist’s childhood, when she discovers she isn’t like other children, and the shame she felt because of it. Because, as Pippa herself thinks, shame or embarrassment are emotions we can relive again and again — all it takes is calling to mind the moment we first felt them.

Pippa is a charming character, one who has made peace with who she is and how she moves through the world, but also with what’s expected of her: a marriage of convenience. After all, how can one believe in something as intangible as love? All of this comes through in lines that are by turns sharp-witted and refreshingly down-to-earth, often somewhat naive, delivered with disarming honesty, traits that create dialogue full of rhythm and humour throughout the book (the exchange with her fiancé while dancing is one of the book’s best!).

As for Cross, one of the owners of The Fallen Angel and the male lead of this Sarah MacLean novel, he bears no resemblance to Michael Bourne, because right from the start the description breaks from the typical hero mould: a tall, angular body, red hair. “Interesting, not handsome,” Pippa thinks. And therefore all the more dangerous. For a woman passionate about anatomy, that body of sharply defined muscle and bone is… perfect.

The attraction is immediate on Cross’s part — so much so that, by page 22, he’s already thinking to himself that ruining her would be something he’d do for free. But despite the urge to touch and seduce her, Cross fights with everything he has not to give in to desire, to temptation. The character carries a cross to bear: the weight of a guilt more than six years old, which has led him to treat every decision in his life as an act of atonement for those sins. Touching Pippa would be an unacceptable deviation from the life he has forced upon himself.

Unlike the desire for revenge that drives Bourne in the first book — pulling him away from any chance at happiness alongside Penelope — here it’s atonement, the weight of a past in which certain choices had consequences too heavy for others to bear. The guilt he has assigned himself is what drives him to deny himself any possibility of happiness.

This is one of those books whose sex scenes I love most. The first is fierce, a perfect example of how words can set fire to more than just bodies — and of how pleasure can exist in so many forms. The second is intense in its desperation, because for so long they had both longed to touch one another; perhaps because of that mounting, long-restrained desire, the moment ends up feeling epic.

There’s an erotic charge running through the way, for more than half the book, Cross avoids touching Pippa — as if doing so would be his undoing, the end of his resistance and his atonement, as if she were temptation in its most absolute form, the kind that means madness and a fall into Hell with no looking back.

Cross has the rare quality, in this type of romance, of not being a hero who imposes himself physically — quite the opposite: he avoids, he flees, he doesn’t touch. And that’s fantastically sexy, which perhaps proves there’s a whole other kind of historical romance hero worth exploring, filling a gap that exists in the genre. An elusive hero can be just as sexy as one with a commanding presence.

In the end, Pippa is truly the woman capable of exorcising all the ghosts of Cross’s past, of leading him back into the light, away from the Hades he built for himself, of giving him back his true name: Jasper. Her love, but also her sharp mind, her raw honesty, her relentless questions, create for Cross a new possibility of finally leaving behind the darkness he inhabits.

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover — Score

Category: Chemistry between the protagonists

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Cross’s attraction, one he can’t allow himself to act on, given the promise he made to himself, creates a rare kind of tension in the genre. It’s precisely this restraint that makes the chemistry more intense than that of a more physically assertive hero.

Category: Characters

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Pippa breaks away from the usual archetype, a scientist, socially out of place, with no illusions about herself. Cross carries a cross of guilt that coherently drives every decision he makes throughout the book. Both have well-built arcs.

Category: Dialogue

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Lively pacing, genuine humour, sharp yet down-to-earth lines from Pippa. The exchanges between the two carry much of the book’s tension.

Category: Intimate scenes

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

The first scene is fierce: words set fire to more than bodies. The second is intense in its desperation, born of desire restrained throughout the entire book. Scenes with clear narrative purpose, never gratuitous.

Category: Prose/style Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4.5/5)

Strong capacity for building vivid images (the “Hades Cross built for himself,” the “cross” of guilt). Some repetition of ideas, though this is common across the author’s prose.

Category: Originality

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Cross as a hero who doesn’t physically impose himself, paired with Pippa’s analytical spirit, makes this one of the most original couples in Sarah’s books.

Category: Overall score

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

One of my favourite books in the series, for the way the tension held back over more than half the book is finally resolved: Pippa as the woman capable of leading Cross back into the light.