A review by books_ergo_sum
A Lady's Rules for Ruin by Jennifer Haymore

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

5.0

Do you have an author who’s your ‘exception to the rule’ author? Because I think Jennifer Haymore is mine.

There’s a like… shenanigans-y historical romance that I kinda hate with every fibre of my being? The plot doesn’t hand together, the historical setting gets stomped into nonexistence, and the characters are always two dimensional at best.

But not so with the books in this series? I should have hated this. The heroine made lists, we had a comedy of errors as she tried to get herself ‘ruined’, and our heart of gold charmer guy had a ‘dark secret' that wasn’t that big of a deal. Also, he had a bunch of wards—so there were lots of children in this book, and I ain’t about that Children In Books Life 🫠

But I really really loved this book. And I think I know why:

✨ There was so much flirty flirty on-page falling in love. Like, a gratuitous amount.

Maybe someone else would be like “god, I get it, they’re in love.” But I was like “yass go rowing together and have a polite conversation on the outside while you pine and think about how much you admire them in the inside!!” On-page falling in love is my drug.

Plus, I found the shenanigans entertaining, the characters were lovely, and the historical setting was mostly unmolested (that aristocrat who opened a store? I’m actively pretending that didn’t happen and so far it’s working).