Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - A Rake of His Own

This was soo good! It was really fun to see more of Marius and Rakken, what happened after the 4th book and gave even more depth to the various worlds/conflicts. It left me wanting more books in this series

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itsnotalakeitsanocean's review

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As a disclaimer I have not read the rest of the Stariel series as I was informed this book could be read as a standalone. To an extent I agree, but I do think I was missing some context for certain things but that was purely my fault for jumping in here. Also some of the content warnings I included reflected what the author put in the content warning included in the book.

I really enjoyed this book and genuinely got kind of sad when it ended (which is rare for me) because I grew to like the characters a lot. I think my only complaints were:

It was set up to be a murder mystery with the main pair solving a crime. Though they did do it, I think a lot of the plot meandered away from the murder mystery and I would have liked to have seen them do more investigative work because it was really fun seeing the magical world being explored that way. Like a lot of people I also found the murderer to be a bit predictable.
I think the jump from terse-working-relationship-with-an-old-flame-that-spurned-me to friends with benefits was a bit steep, though I do think the journey from friends with benefits to lovers was a lot more nuanced and better plotted out.

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baroo92's review

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I ADORED this. AJ Lancaster does such a great job with emotional tension between characters, and how bonds grow over time despite some characters' best efforts to avoid them. Everything about their relationship was so tasty, I really struggled to put the book down!!
This book is definitely ~spicy~ but I appreciate that not every single sex scene has to be written out. There are two clearly explicit sex scenes, but the rest of the time it's clearly explained that they've become fuckbuddies without the reader having to watch every second. I found that nice- it felt a little less voyeuristic to watch every single second. It also helped explain the steam between them- if they're fucking regularly, it makes sense that it comes up as a topic of conversation regularly. Sometimes spicy books have characters uncomfortably FIXATED on the physical, but in this instance there was an excellent balance between taking important things seriously and also undressing each other with their eyes in between. I also LOVED that they had admiration for each other outside of just being hot- they're both big ol' nerds, and I sometimes got more thrills from the characters talking about things they're passionate about than I did from the sex! Lancaster does such a great job building genuine relationships between all of their characters.

The only reason I take a SLIVER of a point off this book is that I was a little dissatisfied with the reveal of the murderer- it felt like hints were dropped SUPER HARD on one character, and then the reveal after not really relating to them at all felt a little meh. The drama after the reveal was still intense, but I was really hoping for a bigger shock/betrayal moment. I was also hoping for a little more on Marius' development of his powers- would love if Lancaster continues in this world/with these characters solving fae/mortal crimes in the future and exploring both Rake and Marius' magical skills together! I also would've liked a little more payoff on Thistlefel- I want to see more of what that loaf can do!

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mairead_parade's review

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emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Super catnip-y installment to a very fun series.

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