Sarah MacLean’s historical romance, Brazen and the Beast, is the reason I don’t post my list of favorite books until January 31. I finished this second in the Bareknuckle Bastards series on Thursday, and it’s the best romance I’ve read this year. It’s going on my favorites list. I picked it up originally because Entertainment Weekly (EW) had it on their list of best romances of 2019.

1837 was supposed to be the “Year of Hattie”. Lady Henrietta Sedley has big plans for her twenty-ninth year, beginning with a trip to a women’s bordello so she can be ruined, escape marriage, and take over her father’s shipping business. But, there’s a man in the way. She finds the handsomest man she’s ever seen unconscious and tied up in her carriage. Before she pushes him out of her carriage, she kisses him.

Savior Whittington, known throughout Covent Gardens as Beast, doesn’t know who attacked him and left him in a carriage. But, he was captivated by the violet-eyed beauty who has secret plans, and shoves him out of the carriage so she can continue them. Only one of the men who ruled the area, one of the Bareknuckle Bastards, is able to track her down to the high-class bordello that caters to the women of society. It’s there in a private room that he learns her five-point plan for the “Year of Hattie”. And, he’s certainly willing to help her with the first one, Body. It’s too bad they’ll be rivals in the shipping business, though.

It doesn’t hurt that Whit, known as Beast, is the handsomest man Hattie has ever seen. But, he’s built his life living in, and fearing, the past, while Hattie is all about the future. And, as much as Hattie would love to have a future with this sexy man, she’s strong enough to put her faith in herself.

MacLean’s latest romance is sexy and steamy. It also features a strong woman, determined to take responsibility for her own life. Hattie wants the family shipping business, and, if she’s thwarted by her brother, her father, and Beast, she’ll take matters into her own hands. This woman who grew up on the docks finds a delicious way to enact her revenge.

A strong, capable woman. A sexy Beast who tries to take care of everyone he loves. It’s an explosive combination in Sarah MacLean’s outstanding Brazen and the Beast.

Sarah MacLean’s website is http://www.sarahmaclean.net/

Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean. HarperLuxe, 2019. ISBN 9780062911506 (large print, paperback), 554p.

*****
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