A Logical Man’s Guide to Dangerous Women Novel, Book 3
From the publisher:
New York Times bestselling author Cathy Maxwell’s delicious Logical Man’s Guide to Dangerous Women series continues with this provocative romance between a reprobate earl and a sensible spinster who agree to marry under scandalous circumstances. Perfect for fans of Sophie Jordan and Sabrina Jeffries.
Lesson #1: A man, even titled and handsome, cannot be careless forever.
The Earl of Marsden—better known as Mars to all—has lived his life by his own rules…until he is presented with a very big problem in a very tiny package—a baby girl, his daughter cast off by his ex-mistress. Mars won’t let his child be cast adrift, except he doesn’t know the first thing about babies.
Panicking, he turns to a woman for help. Not just any woman, but Clarissa Taylor, village spinster, matron-in-training, and Mars’s greatest critic. Still, who better to tend a motherless child than a woman who was abandoned as a babe herself?
Lesson #2: Life always plays the upper hand—especially when it comes to love.
Clarissa desperately wishes to not to be beholden to anyone. She has spent a lifetime being pitied by the village. Her plan is simple—to use what the intolerable earl will pay her to become her own woman. It all sounds so straightforward until the threat of scandal sends her and the one man she can’t abide toward . . . marriage?
Mars and Clarissa are about to learn the greatest lesson of all—that sparks always fly when the iron is hot.
https://amzn.to/3uh7ioZ
I haven’t read Maxwell in a few years, so I missed the first two books of this series. That said, I kind of knew there were stories before it (I thought just one) but it didn’t really matter. I didn’t feel like there were any holes in the story or that I was missing some crucial plot point. It stands alone beautifully – but now I want to read the first two books in this series!
Mars is local royalty in this small town and his nemesis has been a foundling raised by the village cleric and his wife, Clarissa. They just rub each other the wrong way. But when an ex-paramour dumps a baby in his lap and takes off, he falls in love instantly but quickly realizes he is in over his head. While the baby isn’t a newborn, she is well under a year old and he has zero experience with babies. He turns to the town matrons, who immediately push Clarissa to take care of the babe.
Clarissa can’t stand Mars, but as an abandoned baby herself, she can’t bear the thought of this little girl growing up unloved, so she reluctantly agrees to help out. Fairly quickly Mars realizes that he needs a wife and mother for his daughter, and somehow manages to convince Clarissa to take on the role. There is some family drama going on that adds some hurdles to their happily ever after, but that is the fun of a romance!
I really enjoyed this book. I like learning how babies were fed and cared for when they didn’t have a mother to nurse them, for instance. Mars and Clarissa both had interesting back stories and I liked getting to know them. I couldn’t help but root for them to find their happily ever after, and there was some real chemistry between them – along with some hot bedroom scenes. This was a terrific Regency romance, so if you enjoy those, don’t miss this one.
A Logical Man’s Guide to Dangerous Women, books in order:
2/2022 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
HIS LESSONS ON LOVE by Cathy Maxwell. Avon (January 25, 2022). ISBN: 978-0062897350. 400p.
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 