CECILIA AND THE RAKE by Catherine Dove is about people finding love despite their faults. This third installment in the Rowland Sisters Trilogy picks up about six months after The Lazy Bachelor (book 2) ends, with the wedding of Lord Shipton and Miss Frances Armitage. As with the first two books, there are several plot lines and pairs of lovers, making the title a bit too narrow to adequately represent the whole story. Here, there are three couples who find their way to their significant other despite age, personality and past experiences.
At the outset, I must note that this book was written as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a worldwide event where participants strive to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I commend any person who undertakes this feat, but it appears that the book was not edited beyond the close of the event and before publishing. Many of my comments could easily be addressed with another round of editing, now that the NaNoWriMo event is over. I also should note that this book should be read after the preceding two books in order to understand and appreciate the story. To alleviate that issue, I would have liked to see, at the outset of the novella, a concise summary of the major events in the previous two books. This kind of recap would give the third book some context and make it less confusing.
In regards to writing style, there was quite a bit of narration in the book that could have been simplified or covered more directly with dialogue. Also, the narration and dialogue do not obviously move the plot forward in several places, and so seem redundant or perplexing. The first 23 single-spaced pages fall prey to this problem. Those pages are dedicated to addressing a lot of people at the wedding, while leaving the reader uncertain about who the characters are and what they have to do with the book. Then finally, on page 24, the Rake is introduced. It would have been easier to follow the story had the setting been described in the first paragraph – the wedding of Lord Shipton and Miss Frances Armitage – and the attendees described. Instead, this issue, along with some awkward sentence construction and blatant typographical errors, caused slowing in the pace of the book.
In regards to plotlines and character development, a large portion of the book is difficult to follow because of the priority given to the various characters and the amount of time spent with each. While I liked the development of Cecilia's and the Rake's relationship, Cecilia and her Rake do not have enough attention paid to them. Their relationship really should have taken precedence over all others. Instead, much more time is spent on scenes involving Miss Katherine ("Kitty") Clarke, both individually, and with Mr. Guy Dorne. Furthermore, when the characters are introduced, their descriptions need to be more accurate and streamlined. First names should be used to avoid confusion of the relationships among them; Mrs. Tyndall is Portia, and Mr. Tyndall is Perry, both major characters in book 2. Likewise, Mrs. Windborne is described well, but in describing her husband, Frederick Windborne, there should have been some mention of him being Mr. Harding's best friend to tie it all together. Then there is the blatant change in the name of Franny Armitage's younger sister – Eleanor in book 2, Harriet in book 3. These issues made reading the novella difficult.
The heat level is about a 2 out of 5, appropriate for readers 16 and older.
Overall, this book definitely has the potential to be a great novel, and after reading the trilogy in order, I understood the third book so much better than the first time I read it. I would recommend this book with the caveat that the trilogy should be read in order, but one more run through the editing process could make this a very enjoyable read.
**Review originally written for The Romance Reviews.com at http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=8250
