When a lady misbehaves by Michelle Marcos

When a Lady Misbehaves by Michelle Marcos
Published by St. Martine's
Why I read this: I was in the mood for a historical that didn't have a proper lady or noble as the Heroine.

As a maid at The Pleasure Emporium, Miss April Jardine has witnessed her share of sinful acts, but nothing as brazen as her own money-making scheme. By blackmailing the gentlemen named in the Madame’s private diaries, April can escape a life of drudgery—as long as she avoids the hangman’s noose. All goes swimmingly until she crosses paths with Lord Blackheath, the most powerful judge in England. His wicked gaze suggests he is torn between exposing April and seducing her—and April is only too pleased to oblige.

This Heroine is one of the worst I have ever read. I can't stand her. She is selfish, rude and every time we were in her POV I could not wait to get out of it.

Having said that, the story is very interesting with a few twists I was not expecting. It was not at all predictable, and that, I enjoyed very much.

April is a maid in a whore house. When the madam tells her that she must sell her body like all the other girls or leave, she decides that she is too good to sell her body and runs off. But not before she steals the madams diary. In the diary are all the men that the madam was with when she was a courtesan, over 20 years ago. The diary also says that the madam had a baby. April gets it into her head that she can go to these men pretending to be the madams daughter. She tells the men that they are her father and that she wants to live with them, now that her mother has died.
Of course the men what nothing to do with her, and pay her off so that she will go away. Because she doesn't actually come right out and ask for money, she doesn't consider her self to be a blackmailer.

The last man she tries this with turns out to be someone who is still in love with the madam and asks April to stay on with him. She falls in love with the idea of being accepted and treated like a daughter. She is happy for a few days, but then her plan all goes to hell when she if found out. Lies are made up to cover lies. Everyone is now in on it in order protect the reputation of the Duke and his sons.

The story was good. Like, really good. Things kept happening that I didn't expect and I was glued to the pages wanting to find out what would happen next. As much as I hated the heroine, I loved the story.

But, and it's a big but-The flow was all wrong. It's hard to review this book because as much as I liked the story, the execution of it was bad. The writing style was choppy and difficult to follow.I kept getting pulled out of the story becuase of it and that confused me because I wanted to read on, to find out what was happening next, but I had to pause way too many times to say "why did she write it that way?". I don't like being pulled out of my reading for any reason.

When a Lady Misbehaves is a C. If it was a different writer I can see this book as an A, because as much as the Heroine sucked, the Hero was terrific, and the story was very good and entertaining. Ms. Marcos just wasn't able to pull it off as well as someone else could of.