Intoxicating! Absolutely re-readable!

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Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2) 
by Sarah MacLean         

The cover has a quote from Entrainment Weekly citing MacLean as being "the...utterly intoxicating queen of historical romance." I certainly have to agree with the "intoxicating" moniker.
I'd been feeling a bit disgruntled lately with the historical romances that had come my way. Very little new and exciting. Imagine my inner cheering when within the first pages of "Brazen and the Beast" I was hooked!
I loved Lady Henrietta Sedley (Hattie) who had determined to take her fate into her own hands. And her list! Well not many would be so decisive. Hattie had perfectly thought out requirements for the salacious appointment she had that night. What a hoot!
Beast was wonderful, despite the unusualness of their meeting. Their repartee was magnificent. The chemistry fairly zinged off the page even as they both fought it.
As events unfold, Hattie, a woman ahead of her times, fights for freedom from the path she is supposed to take. Hattie has dreams and a four point plan to captain her own fate. "Business. Home. Fortune. Future.” Now is the time to set all in motion having just reached her momentous twenty-ninth birthday, and as Hattie refers to it, the beginning of the "Year of Hattie".
Hattie grew up in the shadow of the docks, Covent Gardens and her father's shipping business. A business she's learned from the ground up, that she knows and understands intimately, better than her brother Augie. Hattie wants to take that business over. But there's the problem of heirs being the thing in business, not heiresses. August has no idea about the business and that has troublesome. So Hattie is determined to win over all protesters against her being in charge of Sedley Shipping.
And the Beast (Whit) comes to adore this woman, who thinks she's unattractive and whom he can't take his mind, his eyes, or anything else off.
Hattie and Whit strike a bargain. A bargain that turns into a war. Whit comes to see what this woman is made of even as she goes toe to toe with him.
I loved their inner voices even as their words out loud are happening, so much more goes on in their heads. And we are privy to that! Great fun!
Of course the dastardly Euan is in the background, as are the Devil and other figures we know and love. In fact, despite a reading list as "long as my arm" I'm off to reread some of their stories.
Hattie's friend (Nora) Lady Eleanora Madewell, is such wonderful character and I'm going to enjoy her's and Nik's interactions if and when they get their own story. I'm already salivating about the final Bareknuckled Bastard's story--Grace's!
I'm sure it will be as magnificent as this read has been.
Hattie takes Whit's breath away and they both took mine! What a roller coaster read! I forwent sleep time to read on. I just couldn't put this episode of the "Bastards" down until the breathtaking, rewarding end!

 A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley

*****

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