The Vicar and the Rake

Society of Beasts, Book 1

By: Annabelle Greene

Narrated by: Cornell Collins

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

As a young man, Sir Gabriel Winters left behind his status as a gentleman, turning his back on his secret desires and taking a self-imposed vow of celibacy. Now he's a chaste, hardworking vicar, and his reputation is beyond reproach. But, try as he might, he's never forgotten the man he once desired or the pain of being abandoned by his first love.

Edward Stanhope, the duke of Caddonfell, is a notorious rake, delighting in scandal no matter the consequence. With a price on his head, he flees to the countryside, forced to keep his presence a secret or risk assassination. When Edward finds Gabriel on his estate, burning with fever, he cannot leave him to die, but taking him in puts them both in jeopardy.

With the help of a notorious blackmailer, a society of rich and famous gentlemen who prefer gentlemen, and a kitten named Buttons, they might just manage to save Edward's life - but the greatest threat may be to their hearts.

Contains mature themes.

©2020 Annabelle Greene (P)2020 Tantor

Even Cornell Collins Couldn't Revive This

tl:dr Insta love, lack of unique story, undeveloped characters, excruciatingly sliw story arc.

I was completely prepared to like this book. I adore the narrator and was so excited to listen to another Regency MM romance read by him. However.

There is very little character building early on. The characters didn't grab my attention at all, and the story line relies heavily on the setting and sexual desperation to catch the listener's attention without any interesting details or unique characterization. there is little feeling of MFEO between the main characters. Also, sick bed kissing. Eww.

I found myself groaning each time I thought about going back to this book, even when Gabriel's plucky sister entered the picture. I think I'd rather read about the main characters' siblings falling in love. it would be more interesting than the two MCs who, frankly, feel like they're just desperate for each other's bodies between bouts of manufactured awkwardness or anger.

If this is an early work by this author, I look forward to seeing how their writing grows. But this feels more like fan fiction than a well structured novel with character growth and tension. Bummer.

OK.

Overall, I found this story entertaining but too long. For me, it definitely dragged out in several places, too much internal monolog from both MC's. I found myself hitting the FF, especially towards the end.

While the story itself was good, I did not find any great mystery to be solved. Although I do have to admit the tiny twist at the end was a nice touch. And I may have to relisten to the last couple of chapters, w/o giving the whole ending away, I was under the impression everything was a lose? (Structure) So, how could the ending happen?

The narration was spot on and honestly was what kept me going through out the whole tale.

Great!

This book has it all! Mystery, romance, suspense and great narration. I’m not sure why the other reviews are lukewarm, this is way better than lots of 5 star rated m/m books. Fun and cozy read, go for it!

I look forward to reading more :)

There was plenty love here and some truly memorable internal dialogue that wrapped around my heart, but at times there was a little too much of it. I love childhood friends to lovers but I think it might have felt a little more real with more intimate knowledge of one another to show that connection, or maybe a flashback. I felt a bit like I was told that love and affection existed for years without really feeling it. The side characters brought a nice element and I there was some well written pining but the push/pull went on to a point of frustration and got a bit muddled with the mystery towards the end. I thought Edward was well thought out but Gabriel at times fell flat for me with too many blank spaces.

All that said, the writing was very good and I will certainly read more by Annabelle Greene. I suspect she will become a favorite of mine as time goes on because there was so much that ALMOST clicked perfectly in place.

Good story

I didn't realize that this was part of a series. A few weeks back I read a book that coincidentally had a few of the characters from this book. It took me about halfway through listening before I realized it was set in the same world with the same characters. So it was rather nice to get a little bit more from this story in terms of world building. All in all it was a fun listen for an afternoon. The narration was great. The voice acting was pretty spot-on.