Meet the SOCIETY OF SIRENS—three radical, libertine ladies determined to weaponize their scandalous reputations to fight for justice and the love they deserve… to publish explosive memoirs exposing the powerful man who ruined her. Her ideals are her purpose, her friends are her family, and her paramours are forbidden to linger in the morning.
He’s not looking for a summer lover…
Adam Anderson is a wholesome, handsome, widowed Scottish architect, with two young children, a business to protect, and an aversion to scandal. He could never, ever afford to fall for Seraphina. But her indecent proposal—one month, no strings, no future—proves too tempting for a man who strains to keep his passions buried with the losses of his past.
But one night changes everything…
What began as a fling soon forces them to confront painful secrets—and yearnings they thought they’d never have again. But when Seraphina discovers Adam’s future depends on the man she’s about to destroy, she must decide what to protect… her desire for justice, or her heart.
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THE RAKESS is the kind of story that leaves you buzzing, excitedly advertising it to your fellow romance readers at the gym/coffee shop/bookstore. Scarlett Peckham has an elegant and lyrical writing voice and a tremendous gift for emotional complexity, leavened by a wonderfully sophisticated, wry sense of humor… a lush, clever, erotic, truly adult love story, a romance between two brilliant, scarred souls who risk everything for each other.
I devoured THE RAKESS by Scarlett Peckham, with its unique role reversals, passionate couple, and rule breaking. The strong, brooding heroine rejects Society’s restrictions on a woman and lives life boldly on her terms. The widowed upstanding hero fights the pull of desire in order to protect his business and children. But love can seldom be denied.
Everything I want in a historical romance: smart, sexy and feminist.
The Rakess is a triumph, delicately written and unflinching in scope. The writing thrums with desire and conviction, and Seraphina and Adam will leave you aching for more of Peckham’s passionate, progressive romances!
I have been an admirer of Scarlett Peckham ever since I read her first novel, The Duke I Tempted. Her writing is vivid, emotive and basically took characters that were not familiar romance novel main leads and places them in situations that a reader will start wondering how will it all work out. It works out perfectly I might add.
Now, in her latest novel, The Rakess, she takes her characters and their stories even further. Here, Seraphina Arden is the narrator, the protagonist who finds the social circumstances of her time quite oppressive to women, much more so to women like her who finds themselves judged in a different manner from men. They become pariahs and are called such unfair names while men who commit the same transgressions are often forgiven and often times lauded for their acts. Now is the time to fight for what is due to them, and so with her friends they decided to establish the Society of Sirens. Women who proudly walk on the edge of what is deemed proper and improper but more importantly to make themselves known as equal to men. But Sera, on her quest suddenly finds herself right on the path of one Adam Anderson, the one man who sees beneath her public persona and burrows himself deep into her being. But at what cost to both of them should their association be made public? Can Sera risk being hurt once more and can Adam forego a more secure future for him and his children for the sake of being with Sera?
The Rakess surprised me, it had an unexpected premise yes but more importantly this one dealt with a more in depth character development. Sera’s especially since her personality and struggles unfolds gradually and you as readers infer what her problems really are and how it plays into her behaviour. It really is Sera’s book more than a romance but Adam is no easy character as well. In many ways the role reversal here is obvious on hindsight but while the romance is unfolding you feel the struggle of both these characters and their eventual unconventional HEA. I adore it and I feel that The Rakess would be one of those romance that would stick with me for quite a long time. The prose is quite lyrical, the characters wonderfully nuanced and the love story is memorable.
The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham is really good. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride when I was reading it. Seraphina and her friends make a group called a society of sirens where they use there talents to fight equality for woman. Sera also drinks and has many many affairs and does not let them get close to her. She pushes men away after she is done with them including Adam her next door neighbor. In every book I have read of Scarlett Peckhams there is a moment where I think there is no way this can end happy. There is so much despair how can they get through this. Every time!! I think that truly is remarkable she can pull me in her stories where I see no way out. It’s a great talent she possesses. Her style is quite unique for historical romances and I love how she shakes it up And pushes boundaries
If you love steamy historical romance, this is for you. I usually read contemporary, but I truly enjoyed the foray to late 18th century Cornwall and the refreshing lack of Duke love interests (:
When I started reading the very first pages, I said to myself, “Ms Scarlett Peckham, where have you been all my life?” She writes historical romance so beautifully and with a deep impact. Since my own great-grandmother was a first-generation feminist, and I’ve been spoon fed on Mary Wollstonecraft, I have been waiting a VERY long time for an historical romance to meet my upbringing’s expectations. This met those expectations and succeeded in every feminist way possible! Will read much more from Peckham!
Loved the new take on the classic rake.
What a different storyline and even after finishing still thinking about this one.
The reverse trope of the male rake with a female who is much worse at times but due to a lot of background and unhappiness. The hero is almost the opposite, a widow with two children who grieves and loved this wife.
This is one you just have to read to understand and form your opinion but I have to say the author wrote thought provoking opinions and strong scenes that draw out the raw emotions not always felt.
Mary Wollenstonecraft should be better known!
This book will break your heart but build your soul. Read it.
Actually ten ! This is a pwerfully written novel about a fragile, powerful woman. Just “WOW”!
A great deal of angst, but presented in an interesting way, with lots of steam and unusual characters for the time in question. The author has a wonderful way with words in describing her characters’ thoughts and feelings.
“The Rakess” positives are far less than the negatives, leaving me torn on how I feel about the overall read. Starting off with the positive, I liked the strong sensual heroine Seraphina who wasn’t ashamed to showcased her attraction towards the architect, Adam, who did everything in his power to fight the urge to submit to her wild ways. It was a constant (and shall I say tiring?) back and forth between the two throughout the entire novel. I say about ⅓ I was already done and over it, and the repetitiveness allowed the story to draaaaaag on. Despite the 380+ pages, there were far more tedious scenes that could have been cut out to make it a smooth sailing ride. I can’t even tell you how many times I check the % of the book to see if I was making any progress. It seem like I was just stuck and that’s something no reader wants to experience.
In spite of the scenes that I found redundant, it wasn’t a complete terror to read. It was easy to see and feel the connection between Adam and Sera, and despite their social standing, I did quite enjoy how their relationship came to be. Moreso, I think the author did a decent job touching sensitive topics such as grieve, death, loss of pregnancy, addiction/alcoholism, animal cruelty, kidnapping and false imprisonment.
“The Rakess” left me caught between a rock and a hard place, and can easily be a hit or miss for readers.
Seraphina Arden is well-known for her scandalous views on equality, her penchant for taking lovers, and her propensity for wine-drinking. She hopes to open an institute to train women to work in trades usually reserved for men. To raise funds, she’s decided to publish her memoirs exposing her sordid past and the powerful man who set her on the road to ruin. She’s singular in her purpose, holding her friends as family and ensuring her lovers are gone by morning.
Adam Anderson is a widowed Scottish architect spending the summer working on a project in Cornwall. He has two children and a burgeoning business to protect. He can’t afford an affair and certainly not with scandalous Seraphina Arden. But she’s spending the summer in her native Cornwall as well and her proposal of a no strings attached month between them proves too tempting when Adam has been burying his passionate nature and grief for the past three years.
A simple fling rapidly grows far more complicated and emotional, igniting feelings neither expected to experience again. But when Sera learns that Adam’s career is staked on the good favor of the man she’s on the cusp of calling out in her memoirs, she must decide between her cause and her heart.
I have so many feelings and thoughts about this book, so you may be in for a bit of a ramble. I was so looking forward to it but I must say it was both what I expected and a bit of a disappointment. There can be no doubt that this book is impeccably well-written, if a bit wordy in places, but in my opinion at least, it isn’t really a romance at all. This is more of a feminist treatise that I would expect to read in a literature class or discuss in a serious-minded book club and it certainly did its job in that respect. It put me into the frame of mind of the true feminists who lived in what was a terrifying time for women in which we had virtually no rights at all and illuminated the contrast between the true meaning and purpose of feminism and today’s watered down, easily offended version. But it was not a romance.
Sera’s relationship with Adam took a backseat to literally everything else in the book and Adam was never given much opportunity for growth or depth. He was one of the sweetest and most thoughtful heroes I’ve read and as such I wound up thinking that he deserved better and more than he wound up getting from Sera. I wanted him to have more of a backbone and stop coming back for more each time Sera continued to treat him horribly. This was definitely Sera’s story with Adam just thrown in for spice. There wasn’t much substance to their story as a couple and not much was ever really developed, though I don’t think their relationship was really so much the point here. Honestly for all her strong principles and arguments, which I agreed with, Sera herself just struck me, at least most of the time, as immature and emotionally stunted, drowning her feelings in alcohol, throwing childish tantrums, and exhibiting what was, at its core, a selfish nature. Much of the time I felt she was just using Adam and based on the whims of her unstable emotions with no care to how she might affect him. At one point she even tried to force herself on Adam, which to me is rather unforgiveable; it certainly would be so if the roles had been reversed, and that made my respect for her ebb even more. She acted as if she and other ruined women were the only ones to have ever suffered in life and that was grossly irritating to me. By the time she started to consider his feelings even a bit, it was a little too late for me, especially given the fact that she still tried to keep things from him.
There was a ridiculous amount of back and forth between these two that got slightly after a while. The first past of the book especially was very slow paced and that pacing was really increased by large infusions of angst, which always annoys me, though I will say it was very well done here and felt very real and raw (which is probably why it was so hard to read.) Also, make no mistake, just because this wasn’t exactly a romance don’t think it wasn’t steamy; it was, very much so and not for those who prefer to remain on the sensual side. That said, I wound up feeling like those steamy scenes didn’t further the relationship between Adam and Sera, with Sera ultimately keeping Adam at arm’s length or to some extent distant, even by the epilogue and that made the ending rather unsatisfying for me.
I loved the idea of role reversing with a female rake, but the enjoyable part of reading a rake is that he reforms for that one special woman. I don’t think Sera ever did this or even came close. Even at the end she was still married to her cause which, while respectable, ultimately made her seem a bit self-focused to me, especially given her lack of consideration for the potential respectability of her child. While Sera certainly exhibited some redeeming qualities, she never really became likable for me and still always expected much more from others than she was ever willing to give of herself.
The main problem may be that this was a bit too grave and serious in tone for me right now. Overall, this was a well-written book and given that it ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger for one of the supporting characters I’ll probably continue the series even though this one wasn’t quite for me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
A refreshing and entertaining romance that bravely stretches the genre’s boundaries.
Passionate, powerful, and flat-out romantic as hell.
A new and soon to be iconic voice in the world of historical romance, Peckham distinguishes herself as a master of her craft.
ok I read the blurb and said yup I like this, however I started reading and did not agree with that. why well it bored me, and it is supposed to be a romance book and I didn’t feel we got that til way later, more than half a book later. Seraphina, I was wishing she was the type of heroine I liked, but she wasn’t she was drunk and it seemed that is what she was always gonna do, I tried to remember that the tables were turned which it would be something that a Rake would do but I dont know it didn’t sell it well to me. She meets Adam who is actually a really nice guy and has 2 kids, but would he really want Seraphina around..
rcvd an ARC at no cost to author..(netgalley) voluntarily reviewed with my own thoughts and opinions