Review: Gentlemen Prefer Mischief

Title: Gentlemen Prefer Mischief
Author:  Emily Greenwood
Publication:  December 3, 2013 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Reviewed by: Taryn
Rating: 4 stars
Reason for Reviewing: Ebook provided in exchange for an honest review.

It's going to take a dash of mischief to bring these two together…

If it hadn’t been for the haunted woods, Lily Teagarden would never have spoken to her neighbor, Viscount Roxham. Known to the fashionable world as Lord Perfect, to Lily he’s a man she can never respect…and the careless rogue who broke her fledgling heart. But sightings of eerie lights among his trees are causing her trouble, and she needs his help.

Intrigued by this prim beauty who was once an ugly duckling, Roxham agrees to investigate, though hardly has he begun when she mysteriously undermines his efforts. The mischief she throws in his path awakens his sleeping heart, just as his touch stirs a passion she can’t accept. But Roxham is the last man to whom Lily would surrender, and it’s going to take everything he’s got to win her love.

Lily Teagarden is a serious, orderly, and restrained young lady. She has always been the responsible and dependable one in her family out of necessity. Her neighbor, Viscount Roxham (Hal), is quite the opposite. Known as “Lord Perfect,” Hal is charming and carefree with a scandalous reputation. Lily hasn’t seen Hal in a very long time. She’s still embarrassed that he caught her sneaking around in his bushes years ago, drawing pictures of him and writing about him in her journal. In fact, he stole her journal and she desperately wants to get it back now. When he returns home, she visits him to inform him of what’s happening in Mayfield Woods. Strange lights have been seen and now rumors are circulating about a Wood Fiend. Lily can’t selll her knitted shawls because people believe the sheeps have been possessed, and she needs the money in order to open up a school for girls in the village. She asks Hal to step in and clear up all this Wood Fiend nonsense.

Gentlemen Prefer Mischief is the second novel in Emily Greenwood’s Mischief series. I am actually somewhat new to reading historical romances set in Regency England, so I was excited to give this one a try. I was definitely not disappointed!

I really enjoyed the opposites-attract romance between two contrasting personalities. Hal was able to bring out Lily’s passionate side and get her to let loose a little. And once Lily got to know Hal a bit better, she realized that he wasn’t as shallow as she once thought. While their physical attraction was scorching hot, they also fell in love with each other more and more deeply, no matter how hard they tried to fight it. There were plenty of playful moments in which Hal and Lily stole the journal back and forth from one another. It was fun to read excerpts from the journal that Hal decoded.

My one minor complaint is that I think there was a little too much information included about the secondary characters and their relationships. I think it distracted a bit too much from the the main plot. But overall, I enjoyed the novel and raced through it.

If you like sexy and enchanting historical romances, look no further than Emily Greenwood’s novels. Gentlemen Prefer Mischief is a fun read, and I agree with Greenwood that “romance is the chocolate of literature”!