Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover

by Sarah MacLean

November 25, 2014 · Avon

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Genre: Historical: European, Romance

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There was a tremendous amount of squee’ing here at the Bitchery when the eARC of Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover was released. Fans of MacLean, and of the Rules of Scoundrels series had been waiting for Chase’s story FOREVER and the big reveal at the end of No Good Duke Goes Unpunished made the waiting even WORSE. RedHeadedGirl and I dove right in.

ATTENTION. SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST THREE BOOKS IN THE SERIES FOLLOW. BE YE WARNED.

For those of you unfamiliar with the awesome that is the Rules of Scoundrel series, it’s four books set around a gaming hell called the Fallen Angel in Regency London. The Fallen Angel is a place where aristocrats lose their money and their secrets, and the Angel’s founder, Chase is the keeper of those secrets. Chase is known as the most powerful man in London–except now we know the truth: he’s not a man at all.

Georgiana, sister to a duke, fell from grace when she–GASP!–had sex as a teenager and became pregnant. Publicly shamed by her pregnancy, and a horrible cartoon run in a scandal sheet, she retired from society to raise her daughter quietly.

Or so you would think.

In reality she borrowed money from her brother to open The Fallen Angel where she’s been collecting money and secrets for a number of years along with her cohorts Bourne, Cross and Temple. Georgiana is alpha-est of alpha heroines. She does not fuck around. And she will END you if you cross her–as Chase of course.

Now that Georgiana’s daughter, Caroline, is growing up, Georgiana is troubled by the scandal that follows her tainting her daughter as well. She realizes she needs to reenter society in order to ensure that one day Caroline can make a good match. She sets her eyes on a perfectly good aristocratic husband and sets out to snare him.

At her debut ball she meets Duncan West, a self made man who owns those scandal sheets that ruined her years ago. Duncan feels genuinely bad about the shitty thing his paper did to her. When he follows her to The Fallen Angel, he realizes she has connections to Chase.

Duncan needs Chase. He’s got secrets of his own, secrets that the villainous Lord Tremley holds over his head. He wants to break free and he needs Chase and Georgiana to do that. He offers to help Georgiana,  through his scandal papers, make a good match if she connects him to Chase. But of course, Duncan and Georgiana can’t resist each other…and Georgiana IS Chase so…yeah…

This book is all lies within webs of lies within tangles of things and it is glorious.

Elyse: I had to wait to read this until I could do it in one sitting because I was so excited. When the eARCs came out there was so much squeeing at the Bitchery.

I LOVED this book. Did it live up to your expectations, RHG?

RHG:  IT DID.  I’ve been, like, marking off a calendar waiting for this book ever since I got to the “Chase is a woman” reveal at the end of the last book and I like, did a search through the previous books to see if there were any slip ups (did not find any) and I would go and look at the cover once Sarah revealed it and basically was a huge dork about the entire goddamn thing.

What I’m saying here, in my overworked and kind of delirious way, is that this book was built up really high in my head. Like, REALLY high.  And it cleared the bar.

Elyse: one of the things I loved so much was the dialogue between Chase and West. It’s this snappy, witty, flirty dialogue that reminded me of Bogart and Bacall. Every word is deliberate. It’s verbal fencing.

Chase in general can flay with her words. There’s a scene right in the beginning where she cuts down a Mean Girl at a ball and it’s amazing

RHG: I saw someone this summer say, “Oh, obviously Chase’s hero is going to be a beta, since she is such an alpha.”  I said something like, “Lol what” and Sarah MacLean’s response to that was, “I think Chase would eat a beta for dinner.”  West is an alpha, and one of the delightful things about this book was watching West renegotiate everything he knows about dealing with people (especially women), and learn to deal with Chase as an equal.  He kept wanting to protect her and fix all her problems (even as he didn’t understand what those problems actually WERE), and she was like “oh my fucking god just stop.”

I think the setup of how The Fallen Angel got started was a little…handwavey, but I love that Chase basically willed it into existence by sheer force of personality:  “Leighton, give me a shitton of money. I’m bored and I have these reprobates who need occupation.”

Elyse: I think that’s why this works so well as a romance because the tension between Chase and West is… OMG. You kind of expect them to destroy a room when they do go at it.

I loved that Chase is unapologetically ruthless too, and we don’t have some sort of, “Well my daddy was mean to me” back-story to justify it. She’s just a bad ass.

I felt like I should feel sorry for Mary, who Chase ruins after Mary talks smack about Chase’s daughter, but I didn’t. I took some vicarious delight in her destroying Mary. I did feel a tiny bit bad for Langley though. He’s just being a good potential husband, if kind of boring, and he doesn’t get the girl in the end. He doesn’t want her, but that’s not the point. He should get a consolation prize. Like a puppy.

RHG: I took a LOT of vicarious delight in destroying Mary.  I know precisely who she resembled in my mind. And I loved how Georgiana threw Sophie a cookie for not being a terrible person by using her pull to get Sophie a dance with gossip fodder.

I also loved how the Fallen Angel came about because of Georgriana feeling powerless against society and deciding, “Fuck ‘em.  I’m gonna have the power to destroy them ALL.”  And yet, in the end, that power wasn’t enough to protect Caroline from Capital-S-Society.

Elyse: It’s interesting how powerful Chase is, yet as Georgiana she has to stand there and take shit because she’s a woman. It’s an interesting tension to watch play out.

I can’t imagine being used to being in charge, and still have to assume the role of a proper lady in public.

On a different subject, what did you think of West?

RHG: I like him, and I liked his reasons for building a swimming pool.  I got tired of his jumping to conclusions about the nature of Chase and Georgi/Anna’s relationship, even as Georgi/Anna is dropping hints left right and center regarding the Truth About Chase.  I do like their compare/contrast relationship with “rising above adversity” and “how to make everyone respect you.”

What’s your opinion on the villain?

Elyse: I saw a pin on MacLean’s Pinterest comparing Tremley to Frank Underwood from House of Cards, and I think that’s a good comparison. He’s evil and self absorbed, but ultimately I think he provided less conflict that Society did.

I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. I’d give this book an A. You?

RHG: A, absolutely.  I’m just sad this series is over.