By: Sophie Jordan

In the opening of The Rake Gets Ravished, Mercy Kittinger, has traveled from the country to London to steal the debt voucher containing her home that her hapless twin brother lost in a game of cards to the owner of London’s most notorious gaming hell, Silas Masters. When found by Silas in his bedroom, Mercy decides to seduce him in order to avoid being caught stealing the voucher. The next morning, when Silas awakens in his room alone he realizes not only did the mysterious woman take the document, she was also a virgin. Determined to regain his property, he is soon in hot pursuit of Mercy and her secrets. 

After the death of their parents, Mercy took over the family farm, their only source of income. While her twin brother, Bede, flits around London with money they do not have, Mercy takes care of their younger sister, Grace, and all the surrounding land. As she spends her time tirelessly taking care of the entire family, she realizes her brother, as their guardian, has gambled away their livelihood. Once Bede confesses, Mercy concocts a plan to go to London and surreptitiously find the debt voucher lost to Silas in his gaming hell. After running into Silas on the game floor, she sneaks into the private area of the club, which includes Silas’s personal rooms and bedroom. In his bedroom, she locates his desk and is able to locate her brother’s debt voucher. As she is about to sneak out of his room, with voucher in hand, Silas enters his room. 

While we are to believe that Mercy is an intelligent and resourceful individual, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever that she was able to just wander into his bedroom and locate all of these very important documents. Silas’s reputation is that of a ruthless and cruel businessman, caring about the accumulation of wealth above all else. The fact he did not have any security at all, made literally no sense. He is surprised when he finds her in his room, WITH ALL HIS VERY IMPORTANT SECRET DOCUMENTS. If my memory is correct, this drawer was not even locked. If his reputation of ruining men is to be believed, he must have had many enemies? Like, isn’t it more likely desperate people would try to recover their losses or even just kill him in anger? But a woman who spends all of her time toiling on her country farm was able to find the exact valuable document in short order? This plot hole really irked me the entire time I was reading it. After she seduces and leaves him, the only reason he is even able to realize that she stole from him is because SHE LEFT AN APOLOGY NOTE! What. Is. Happening? I am all for a bright and enterprising heroine, who is an active participant in her life and does not just let things happen to her, but this made me very worried that Silas is not good at his job. People must just steal from him all the time. 

While the seduction scene depicted Mercy as smart, it also did have an empowering message. As the reader learns of her loneliness and her belief that this might be her only opportunity of a passionate night, it is clear that she is attracted to Silas as well as trying to avoid being caught. As luck would apparently have it, years ago she discovered a hidden stash of Bede’s erotic books, which she has basically memorized them. This comes in handy as she wants to convince Silas the only reason she would be in his bedroom would be to seduce him. However, it also bothered me that this is also never discussed between the characters. Isn’t he very interested to know how she knew how to do all the sex? Like, he sees the blood on the sheets and realizes she is a virgin, and when he meets up with her again it is very clear she is this hard working, upstanding spinster, caregiver-type for both her family and their farm and it never crosses his mind to ask her how she knew to give him a blow job? 

Mercy is at the, for a lack of better term, mercy of her brother. Her position and station in life is precarious due to his unthinking and capricious nature. Even after she saves the estate, the feeling of victory is short lived as it is only a matter of time until Bede does his next bone headed act, which he indeed does. She also has to contend with her younger sister, Grace, who Mercy is raising to be a lady. Mercy then becomes frustrated with Grace when she does not seem to grasp their station in life, which is decidedly below that of the ton. In keeping Grace sheltered from the burden that Mercy carries does impact their relationship.

Silas is basically alone in the world. His closest friend appears to be an employee, that the reader only receives a glimpse of their relationship. He has suffered abuse from a father who left the family, causing his mother to enter into an abusive relationship. When she perishes, he is sent to live with his maternal grandfather, who resents Silas’s very existence and physically abuses him until he runs away to survive on the streets of London. All of which is to say that this is a man who does not give trust easily and would therefore LOCK HIS IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS UP in the business he has built from the ground up.

The relationship between Mercy and Silas grows when he comes to find her at the home she has stolen back from him. Due to Silas’s capricious upbringing, his pretense is that he is worried that she could be pregnant and refuses to leave until he has confirmation one way or the other. She learns that he is finally someone she can rely upon to help to help share the load of her life and he comes to respect her loyalty to her family and farm.

I did like this book. However, what I consider to be a huge plot hole in the beginning really factored into my view of the rest of the novel. 

Rating: 2/5