"The great secret of society is that ruination is not nearly as bad as they make it out to be. You'll have all the freedoms that come with a ruined reputation. They are not inconsiderable."

Sarah McLean, A Rogue by Any Other Name

““Stop telling me what I mean! Stop telling me what is best for me.””

— Sarah Maclean, One Good Earl Deserves A Lover (via baefikre)

Any idea why Sarah MacLean never made a Benedick book from love by numbers?

I think about that every time I reread Nine Rules and tbh I have no idea unless her original plan was just to give each of the St. John siblings their love story, and she stuck with it.

"Sarah Maclean tends to take real historical events and societal mores and twist them to modern mores and ethics and I love that. I see a lot of complaints about it, mostly I sometimes think, because people haven’t stopped to study the history behind the eras they read. I find her settings immediately recognizable. I tend to worry more when people complain about historical accuracy because it’s outside the norm of what they typically see in historical romance. The marry young/lady’s a virgin/women don’t work outside the home/boy there were huge age gaps everywhere got a lot of story time and press because they were values society wanted to promulgate, but were really only practiced or able to be practiced by a very, very narrow margin of people; typically white and middle class. The lower classes and people of color didn’t have the luxury, the artists, philosophers, criminals, and world changers didn’t want to, and the upper classes didn’t have to. The immigrants, Catholics, Jews, people of color, and people of color who are now considered white weren’t allowed to. But most readers reject those other histories because they haven’t delved deeply enough into real history to know all of that other history even exists."

entropynchaos

Redesigning Historical Romance Book Covers: Sarah MacLean edition. @7:10

"Play your card, Penelope." Her mouth dropped open at the words, at the way he gave her power over the moment, and she realized that it was the first time in her entire life that a man had actually given her the opportunity to make a choice for herself.

Sarah McLean, A Rogue by Any Other Name

“Losing your heart is the most beautiful way to find out you have one.”

— A Scot in the Dark, Sarah MacLean

I think this is the filthiest book Maclean has written. I'd have to go back and re-read the others, but *whew* this was hot enough to melt all the ice in that ship's hold. Whit is a dirty talker, there's a scene where Hattie ties him to the ship's mast (with consent), and I swear Maclean was trying to torture us by dragging everything out for most of the book.

Love In Panels: Brazen and the Beast

"The appeal of the time period for readers is very much about being able to distance readers from certain kinds of social issues and then reframe them as a reflection of society now."

Sarah Maclean talks Bridgerton

Strong contender for best line in any book ever right here

do you have more recommendations for Penelope featherington-coded fmcs? both from the book version and the show version.

Callie from Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean: She's fat/plus-sized and a spinster who realizes she never tried to stand out or grab life by the horns (by herself!) so she comes up with a list of scandalous things she wants to do, the first of which is asking a notorious rake for her first kiss. Ralston is immediately intrigued and soon becomes OBSESSED (no seriously the way he's just so deeply into her body is everything) as he helps her accomplish all the things on her list. There is a very hot carriage scene and (an actual) mirror scene.

Grace from When The Duke Was Wicked by Lorraine Heath: The show!polin dynamic basically; Grace is a redhead with a certain body insecurity who asks her older friend to help her find a suitor who truly loves her. Lovingdon is a jaded rake Who Can Never Love Again after the death of his first wife and son, but that doesn't stop him from doing all these sweet things for Grace and debauching her in every corner while informing her that a man who truly loved her would do all of this... which isn't him. obvi.

Penelope from The Duke Hunt by Lorraine Heath: Not just because her name is Penelope, but the pining vibes in this are impeccable; she's the duke's secretary and this dumb dumb man is making her find him a wife while being all "hm the ideal wife would look like Penelope, talk like Penelope, smell like Penelope.... I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS". Anyway she's so turned on by a hand touch that she masturbates in his carriage and LATER ON TELLS HIM and then HE GETS HER OFF IN THE CARRIAGE.

Jane from The Truth About Cads and Dukes by Elisa Braden: More plus/size-fat rep and she's a wallflower; she's compromised by a guy name Colin (lol) and Colin's older duke brother Harrison steps in to marry her. He's super icy and cold, but he's actually wildly obsessed with Jane's bod after 10 seconds of marriage and once she realizes that, she uses it to her advantage by means of low-cut gowns and erotically stripping her gloves :D

Sarah from Temptations of a Wallflower by Eva Leigh: Sarah is a wallflower who moonlights as infamous erotica writer The Lady of Dubious Quality, but like, instead of ragging on other women, she's actually doing her part to educate women about sex through her stories and provide entertaining material. The hero Jeremy is a vicar who's charged with hunting down The Lady Of Dubious Quality, and unknowingly ends up falling for, and then marrying her. It's also really cute that as Sarah falls in love with Jeremy, her erotica becomes more and more romantic.

"King is a hero who is more than happy to just go down on a lady for awhile, no reciprocation needed. I need this to be a requirement of all romance heroes moving forward."

Smart Bitches Trashy Books talks The Rogue Not Taken

Recs with the heroine going to brothels or gambling hells or very dangerous places and the hero going with her because "you are crazy and in need of protection"

lmao basically every Grace Callaway heroine ever, but here are some standouts:

Her Wanton Wager: Percy approaches Gavin Hunt, a pleasure club owner with criminal beginnings, to deal with her brother's debt to him, and Hunt ends up protecting her from all the crazy shit she keeps wandering into.

Her Protector's Pleasure: okay Marianne actually has a good reason to be wandering the shady parts of London but that doesn't stop Honorable Cop Ambrose Kent from watching over her, and eventually helping her.

The Duke Who Knew Too Much: oh Emma.... all she wants to do is help assist her brother Ambrose and the hero Alaric with his murder investigation but she somehow ends up almost selling herself at a virginity auction that's only stopped because Alaric saves her and then immediately eats her out because he's Very Annoyed.

Olivia and the Masked Duke: Livy is basically her mom Emma but more competent and with actual investigative/defensive training but I'm pretty sure Hadleigh spanks her at some point because he keeps running into her in dangerous situations (but she can handle them! mostly!).

The first four Lady Charlotte's Society of Angels books all have heroines wandering into questionable situations with the heroes freaking out and running after them (or in Cull's case, kinda stalking Pippa lol), but they're generally competent gals who don't need protection, but the back-up's always nice.

The Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe: I debated putting this one on here because the dangerous place Florence goes to is Clay's gambling club but I feel like he kind of token objects to her slumming it before he's all "I'm not one of your PAMPERED UPTOWN GENTLEMEN flo" and then bites her. Devil of Downtown feels similar in terms of the hero protecting her but also feeling like she needs to be protected from him.

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas: Oh Derek Craven..... he hates the idea of Sara wandering around London alone and hates it even more that she's exposed to the *debauchery* of his club because she's too good, too pure for him.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean: Callie has a list of scandalous things she wants to do and Ralston kind of objects before he decides to help her accomplish everything on there, riding astride and all.

Bombshell by Sarah MacLean: The heroine is an explosives expert who's called upon to investigate a series of bombings, and the hero is a gruff cop type who is suuuuper bothered by her and by bothered I mean suuuuuper attracted to her, not that he'll ever admit it.

There are a few others in Sarah MacLean's Rules of Scoundrels series and her Bareknuckle Bastards series that kind of fit the bill, except the heroines are super competent or the heroes don't super care she's in questionable places lol.