The duke pinched the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut. “All we need to do is a bit more research.” This creates a genuinely hilarious dynamic where the Duke is perpetually annoyed at Sebastian and Grace’s lack of common sense as they attempt to make Sebastian into the kind of “Corinthian” who could make Mason Fredericks jealous.įor example, after an early makeover mishap, Sebastian says: For example, the fairy godmother-figure for Sebastian’s makeover into a High Society Hunk is Sebastian’s Eton friend, the Duke of Rotherby. But the book leans in to the ridiculous in a way that I enjoyed, and that mostly works. There is some inherent ridiculousness to re-situating 1980s movie tropes (and not just tropes–entire scenes!) in Regency London. Within The Breakfast Club: Regency Boys’ Boarding School Edition, Sebastian is definitively the nerd. This prologue introduces our hero, Sebastian, and the other eventual heroes of this series. Five teenage schoolboys from very different walks of life have to write essays on who they “believe themselves to be” in Saturday detention. The prologue is quite literally The Breakfast Club, but set at Eton. If you find the idea of ludicrous movie tropes being deployed inside a historical romance novel completely delightful, this book is for you! If you are bothered by the deployment of such ludicrous movie tropes as “person becomes incredibly hot without glasses” and makeover montages, you will HATE this book. Naturally, this involves giving Sebastian a makeover, to turn him into a “fake rake.” Shenanigans ensue. #workplacesexism, amiright?) One day, when Sebastian takes off his glasses, Grace realizes that he is a GRADE-A HOTTIE and enlists him to help make Mason jealous by fake-courting her. (I, personally, have only ever encountered the opposite problem, wherein men in academia view me only as a Hot Person for Flirting With and not as a Real Scholar. Grace wants to attract the marital interest of another scholar, Mason Fredericks, who only thinks of Grace as a Professional Colleague and not a Hot Young Woman. The basic premise is that Grace and Sebastian are two scholarly nerds who are friends. This book puts a lot of plates spinning in the air, and while some of them end up crashing to the ground and breaking, the show is fun while it lasts.

I think I mean it in a good way? It’s mostly charmingly bizarre. Theme: Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers

My fake rake by eva leigh