Eva Leigh (Dare to Love a Duke) is known for historical romance novels that employ multiple tropes and lots of shenanigans, and My Fake Rake is no different. Leigh opens the first book in her Union of the Rakes series with a set-up straight from the 1985 teen comedy The Breakfast Club. Five young men are sent to the equivalent of early 1800s detention at Eton College and, though they are wildly different from one another, they forge a lifelong bond of friendship.
My Fake Rake follows the nerdy boy of the group, Sebastian, and his equally nerdy friend, Lady Grace. When Grace's ailing father asks her to marry, she sets out to convince the naturalist of her dreams that she isn't just a colleague, she's a marriage prospect. How better to attract one man's attention than with the attention of another, slightly scandalous, man?
Except that Sebastian isn't scandalous at all. He's the bookish son of an industrialist, a social group just beginning to be accepted at aristocratic gatherings. This means, however, that he's unknown in high society and therefore the perfect makeover candidate. While denying their longstanding mutual attraction, Sebastian and Grace enlist the help of another member of the Union of Rakes to turn Sebastian into a rake who will then pretend to be entranced by Grace. But what happens when all the pretending turns into something genuine?
With characters to cheer for and a plot that is funny and awkward, My Fake Rake is delightful escapist fiction with a big heart. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels