Book Review: When A Rogue Meets His Match by Elizabeth Hoyt
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Want to know if When A Rogue Meets His Match by Elizabeth Hoyt is worth the read? Here’s my full review to help you decide
When A Rogue Meets His Match Info
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Published: 1st December 2020
Rating: 3/5
Where to buy When A Rogue Meets His Match
When A Rogue Meets His Match Summary
Ambitious, sly, and lethally intelligent, Gideon Hawthorne has spent his life clawing his way up from the gutter. For the last ten years, he’s acted as the Duke of Windemere’s fixer, performing the most dangerous tasks without question. Now Gideon’s ready to quit the duke’s service and work solely for himself. But Windermere wants Gideon to complete one last task, and his reward is impossible to resist: Messalina Greycourt’s hand in marriage.
Witty, vivacious Messalina Greycourt has her pick of suitors. When Windermere summons Messalina to inform his niece that she must marry Mr. Hawthorne, she is appalled. But she’s surprised when Gideon offers her a compromise: as long as she plays the complacent wife, he promises to leave her alone until she asks for his touch. Since Messalina is confident that she’ll never ask Gideon for anything, she readily agrees. However, the more time she spends with Gideon, the harder it is to stay away.
When A Rogue Meets His Match Review
I am unsure of how to start the review for When a Rogue Meets His Match by Elizabeth Hoyt because this would be the first novel that I unfortunately came to the realization that this novel would not be given a 4 – 5 star rating.
Which is highly unusual for me because every single book I have read from Elizabeth Hoyt, I have always given her books high ratings because I love all of her books, well at least almost all, because this book was disappointing and is excluded from the high rating club.
The premise of this book was so promising too!
Because Messalina seemed like such a spitfire and would seem like the type of woman who wouldn’t be so easily cowed by a man.
I was looking forward to the sparring of words between Messalina and Gideon, whilst it did happen somewhat, I was disappointed there were not more scenes where we can witness the battle of wits between the two unfold.
Had there been more, the angst or better yet the sexual tension with the two main characters would be tenfold which would then make the love dynamic make sense.
The speed at how Messalina cares for Gideon doesn’t make sense. She has known Gideon to be her uncle’s lackey since she was young and understands that he has had to do unspeakable things.
So, for her to go from hating him with her entire being to being hopelessly in love with him within a span of two to three weeks seems a bit ludicrous. This is especially compounded by the lack of exposition or of Gideon’s backstory in the first half of the book.
We only get to his sad childhood later in the book and by that time it’s too late for us to understand the drastic change in Messalina. All we see at this point is that she fell in love with this man because he was kind (albeit strict) to his younger staff, likes puppies and is slightly more decent than she had initially thought.
But it doesn’t change the fact that he still forced Messalina into marriage; Yes, it was her uncle but he could have rejected the uncle’s offer which brings me to another point.
Gideon says that he has been enthralled by Messalina since he was a young man, roughly aged seventeen at the time yet we do not see flashbacks to why he loves this woman so obsessively that he was fully willing to force her into marriage.
It doesn’t help the romance aspect because I am left to believe that his obsession and his love for Messalina is purely physical and aesthetic, all because she is incredibly beautiful.
There is no talk of her personality, wit or any other aspect of her that he came to love outside of her beauty and this just makes the hero look even worse especially since not once in this book did he apologize to Messalina.
Not once!
And I am expected to just accept that Messalina forgives him and loves him all because he bought her a library when she found out he bedded her when confronted by Messalina’s brother so their marriage can’t be annulled.
That’s it?!
The cad just bought her a library and she is satisfied with that? Did she ever hate him? Because it doesn’t seem so by how easily her feelings for him sway. At least if the present came with a sincere apology as to what he did wrong and why it was wrong and why this will not happen again, the plot line would’ve been more effective and heartwarming.
But, there was no apology, no nothing, leading me to really doubt Messalina’s character as a supposed spitfire.
I just wished there were more interactions that really show Gideon in a better light to warrant the change of emotions from hate to love within a span of weeks.
On another note, the whole plot point where Gideon has to kill Messalina’s brother to fulfill the terms of the bargain between Gideon and the Duke of Windemere (the evil uncle) was concluded so easily and quickly and it was unsatisfying.
Unsatisfying, because we spent the majority of the book following Gideon being stressed out of his wits on how to murder his wife’s brother without her finding out and hating him only for it to be settled by some fake murder scenario.
And what is with the second side plot?
It came out of nowhere and didn’t flow well with the rest of the story. I truly am disappointed by When The Rogue Meets His Match because it really doesn’t seem like the author to write a story that lacked gravitas.
In conclusion, When The Rogue Meets His Match by Elizabeth Hoyt started out strong but the book lacked the charm her other books have.
Will I read more books by the author?
Most definitely! I just finished Duke of Sin and IT WAS SO GOOD! Can’t wait to write the review for it!
Disclaimer: When A Rogue Meets His Match was provided by the Publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review
If you enjoyed my review of When A Rogue Meets His Match then you might enjoy my other reviews
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