Gentleman Says "I Do" [Mass Market Paperback]

If you like a "bad boy hero" and a heroine who can match him and at times beat him, this is your kind of book! I LOVED it! Catalina Crisp is looking for her father. Iverson Brentwood is looking to find the man who wrote something unflattering about his mother but instead, he finds the man's lovely daughter, Catalina. Sir Phillip Crisp has a bad habit of starting his work but never finishing it, leaving Catalina to take matters into her own hands in order to take care of the house and all the staff. Once Iverson and Catalina find each other, they are hooked! The romance and touch of spice in this book is captivating and will leave you wanting more. I have read Amelia Grey's other books and one of the things that never disappoints is that she keeps the hero and heroine together and the story moving. This is a must-read!

Iverson is gunning for the man who wrote an embarrassing parody about his family. He hopes to confront Sir Phillip and to extract a promise that such a story will never be published again. When Iverson knocks on the door, it's not Sir Phillip he finds, but the man's spirited daughter, Catalina, instead.

Despite his bluster, Catalina isn't intimidated by Iverson. In fact, she matches his fire and wit in a way no woman ever has. He makes his case to her in her father's absence. He will not tolerate another story about his family and he'll make Sir Phillip pay if another one is published.

Iverson has no idea that Catalina helped her father finish the story. Nor can she bring herself to tell him that there are two more installments of the parody, just waiting to be published. She works to pull the new articles, but can't get it done. Then she tries to find her wandering father, but only manages to cross paths with Iverson at every turn.

Our hero and heroine fall in love rather quickly, but there is a pall over the relationship as we wait for the anvils to fall on their heads. Iverson is characterized as a rake, though he never acts like one on-page. We simply hear about his terrible reputation. With Catalina, he's actually quite a softy. Despite his tough talk, his pique is easily dampened, and his focus quickly becomes much more about Catalina than her father.

The story and the romance are pretty standard for the genre. Nothing jumps out as especially good or bad. It was fairly predictable, but not unpleasant. Iverson's behavior is a contraction to his reputation, so I'm not really sure who he is as a man, but he treats Catalina well despite the circumstances which drew them together. Catalina is a little too good to be true, though naive enough to frustrate me at times. I didn't dislike either one of them, but I didn't invest very deeply in either character for some reason. They just didn't make me feel very much. The sex was ok, though I thought there was little unbelievable dialogue during the act that took away from the scene.

This is book 5 in the Rogues Dynasty series, and while there are clear references to other characters or events featured in the previous books, this works fine as a standalone.

Rating: C

Iverson Brentwood, the Rake of Baltimore, returned to London with his twin with the hopes of building their shipping empire on home soil. What he's returned to is being fodder for the gossip mill because of his similar appearance to a certain member of society who is not his father. Hope of the gossip ceases ends when a poet by the name of Sir Phillip Crisp writes a parody of the Brentwood Twins return. Determine to instill the fear of Brentwood into the poet, Iverson stomps over to Chez Crisp and force the man to stop writing about his family.

Catalina Crisp has been holding her little family together by a hair. Her father, while a renown poet, has no head for business or managing money. That leaves Catalina to scrimp, save and beg to ensure they can stay in their home in the lifestyle her father wishes to live. It also means that when her father can't be bothered to finish a scheduled piece of work, she must finish it for him. Of course, covering for her father is what lead her to meet Iverson Brentwood.

Catalina was a woman who took care of everyone: her father, her aunt, the staff at her home, and always put herself last. That is until Iverson Brentwood. When he should have intimidated her, he intrigued her. She loved verbally sparring with him and knowing that she usually threw him off guard. But she also knew that he made her feel, even when they were debating, that she mattered.

Iverson was a man of action and was used to things going according to his plan. Catalina, of course, threw those plans off. But Iverson discovered that with Catalina he found someone who didn't care who he looked like or what he had done in the past, she simply enjoyed him for who he was. He found himself letting go of his anger towards her father and willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to find him simply because it would make her life easier.

A cute story with likeable, witty characters that have you turning the page awaiting their next verbal assault.