Sarah MacLean: Brazen and the Beast

The Lady’s Plan

When Lady Henrietta Sedley declares her twenty-ninth year her own, she has plans to inherit her father’s business, to make her own fortune, and to live her own life. But first, she intends to experience a taste of the pleasure she’ll forgo as a confirmed spinster. Everything is going perfectly… until she discovers the most beautiful man she’s ever seen tied up in her carriage and threatening to ruin the Year of Hattie before it’s even begun.

The Bastard’s Proposal

When he wakes in a carriage at Hattie’s feet, Whit, a king of Covent Garden known to all the world as Beast, can’t help but wonder about the strange woman who frees him—especially when he discovers she’s headed for a night of pleasure… on his turf. He is more than happy to offer Hattie all she desires… for a price.

An Unexpected Passion

Soon, Hattie and Whit find themselves rivals in business and pleasure. She won’t give up her plans; he won’t give up his power… and neither of them sees that if they’re not careful, they’ll have no choice but to give up everything… including their hearts.

CW: Internalized fatphobia, child abuse, abandonment, violence, 

I am not the right audience for this book.  I just want to state that clearly.  I don’t like bad boys and have never understood the attraction to them, I don’t think criminals are sexy, and as someone who still faces misogyny at work I just don’t want to suffer along with the heroine in my romance…particularly if the end result is less “smash the patriarchy” and more “marry it.”

I know MacLean loves Derek Craven and the alpha-hole, and I think this book is a bit of an homage to him or a modern update to that story, and I should’ve reminded myself of that before I let all the recommendations online sway me.  I one clicked in a moment of excitement, and my guess would be most of us would have preferred I didn’t.  So if you are a MacLean die-hard or love the alpha-hole, please feel free to one-click away from my review.

I explored in my recent review of Dreaming of You a bit of the history behind the Beauty and the Beast story and asked the question why is this theme still so popular.  With the hero being nicknamed “Beast”, it seems like maybe this is an opportunity to unpack that question a bit.

Beast, or Whit as he is also know, is suppose to be a sort of Robin Hood of Covent Garden, smuggling goods, ruthless, but kind and benevolent.  He is described as not talking much, which turns out not really to be true…as he does seem to talk a lot, at least to the heroine.  There is SO much exposition in dialogue in the first half that its confusing.  I probably would’ve benefited from reading the first book in this series.

He also growls a lot.  Like A LOT.  After the second time on the same page (and probably the 30th time in the book at about 25%), I actually turned to DH and had a whole conversation about it.  “Do you know of any man who growls?”  I asked.  He couldn’t think of one.  Neither could I.  Maybe its because I gravitate towards more Beta or non-binary men.  But I don’t think I have ever heard a man growl.  Moan, sigh, grunt, purr (if going “mmmm” counts as “purring”), huff, hoot, holler…but no growling.  The only “man” in my life who growls is my territorial rescue dog.

But maybe growling emphasizes his “beastliness”.

He is, according to the heroine, the most handsome man she has ever seen.  So no Beast in the looks department.

He is tortured by his past, and I think we are meant to take that as both a). an excuse for bad behavior/criminal enterprise b). proxy for character depth.  It felt like Derek Craven “lite”.  I didn’t see much of a character arc for him…he seems pretty fixated on Hattie immediately, so the HEA is not much of a pay off, and he still is running his criminal enterprise, so its not like he reforms.  His whole schtick early on seems to be a ruthless pursuit of revenge, and it was this and the non-stop exposition that had me teetering on DNF at about 30%.

Hattie is a Belle like figure.  Brilliant, a head for business, and with a heaping helping of internalized body dysmorphia and fat phobia.  She is very tall and from all descriptions plus sized, and believes that it is her body that has kept her from making match.  This, and her inability to feel anyone admiring or lusting after her body/beauty, is a running theme and why I posted a content warning above.  On the one hand, its realistic for someone to internalize external messages about body and beauty and to use that as a whip to self-flagellate.  On the other hand, we are also suppose to believe that this is a woman who is risking it all to get what she wants.  Yes, I realize humans are complex and can be multiple things…including broken and empowered.  I just wanted Hattie to catch on a little earlier that Beast was in to her.  Its a bit of a fine line between being reflective/representative of fat phobia and body dysmorphia and retraumatizing readers who deal with these issues.  I want readers who struggle with body or beauty issues to be aware that although this book does have fat rep, its at a minimum problematic.  At a maximum, it turns her a bit into a Beast…at least in the eyes of Society, when, coupled with her being a woman…she becomes more of a pariah at a ball than the criminal Beast.

The misogyny she faces is also realistic.  Not just because of “historical accuracy” but also because of “contemporary accuracy”.  As a professional woman, I have faced misogyny in its many forms more times than I want to even dwell on.  Its one of the reasons why so much of  my entertainment/media preferences are women centric…I need a safe space to feel empowered and heard.

When hist-rom authors craft these trailblazing women who are scientists, entrepreneurs, adventurers, etc…it is historically accurate and can be incredibly uplifting and empowering for readers.  What I don’t like is when the HEA becomes the only mechanism for the trailblazing heroine to get her due.  I think MacLean stressed “partnership” so much towards the last half of the book because she wanted to underscore that was her resolution, but the reality was it felt more like “man, because of privelege, leaves her no options but to do it his way.”  In other words, she gets to run her business because he makes it so.

The last half of this book was filled with action, lots of steamy encounters (ie, sex on the page) and some interesting characters (Nora was great, I would love to read her book)…and is what ultimately had me push through to the end.  There are some good bits, and I did think the romance was at least interesting.

Some readers adore this book.  I think those that like to play with Beauty and the Beast themes will probably find this challenging in a way that will appeal to them.  Others will find this book problematic.

That leaves me to my question.  What is it about Beauty and the Beast that still resonates?

Here are some ideas why I think Beauty and the Beast is still a popular archetype today:

• The contrast of outer/inner beauty…and how the inner stuff really makes up why we fall in love
• The idea that love can be a healer/redeemer
• It features a female character who, despite circumstances, takes charge of her own fate

This book does play with many of those ideas in a way that will likely be satisfying to some readers who love B & B.  I posit that both characters are a bit of B & B…”Beast” is beautiful and thrown together with Hattie who feels her outsides have marked her as unlovable.  His love for her and her body aims to heal those wounds.  In turn, Hattie recognizes the wounds of Beast’s childhood that make him ruthless and her love help open him up to healing.

There are a whole lot of problems with pieces of the B & B narrative, threads I found in this book, including the shaky ground of consent, the isolation of abuse, stalker behavior masked as “protection”, and the idea that love itself can change a person.  I do think that love and support does empower snd uplift…but that change really comes from within.  As for the rest…well, reader and writer beware.  Most fairytales come with a fair amount of built in bias and really problematic relationships/themes…so that when we reenvision or play with them, we should also try to at least acknowledge the baked in assumptions.

Obviously, today’s review is brought to you by the word empowerment.  My hope was this would be a book of empowerment, but what I found felt a lot like the opposite.  However, I know other readers will disagree and find this book to be just the special sauce they love and want more of.

Set in 1837, this is an early Victorian book filled with violence, sex on the page, and some problematic content.  I will not be re-reading and will likely not pursue other books in this series.  Readers who like alphas and wild action may enjoy this book.  Readers who also are interested by Beauty and the Beast re-envisionings may find this an interesting study.

3.75 out of 6 Criminal mastermind and smart businesswoman form an unlikely pact to draw out a villain.