The Rogue's Princess - Eve Edwards

The Rogue’s Princess – Eve Edwards

Pages: 257
Publisher: Razorbill (Penguin)
Release Date: 7th July 2011

Other Title in this Series: The Other Countess, The Queen’s Lady

London, England, 1586

Sixteen-year-old Mercy Hart is the daughter of one of London’s richest – and strictest – cloth merchants.

Kit Turner is an actor and the illegitimate son of the late Earl of Dorchester. A chance encounter finds Kit falling for the beautiful Mercy’s charms, but their love is forbidden. A merchant’s daughter and a vagabond – it simply cannot be.
If Mercy chooses Kit she must renounce her family name and leave her home. Will she favour duty over true love, or will she give Kit his heart’s desire?

I really loved the first two books, The Other Countess and The Queen’s Lady, so I fully expected to feel the same way about The Rogue’s Princess. And I did!

Of all of the Lacey brothers we’ve heard from so far, I think that Kit may be my favourite. I thought that it would take a lot to knock kind and gorgeous Will of the top spot, but Kit, with his flowery and poetic way of speaking. I’m a sucker for a silver tongue! But it was his unwavering dedication to Mercy that really got me. Even though her dad forbade their relationship, he refused to give up *swoon*. I do love a forbidden love story. In fact, they’re my favourite kind.

Mercy is the kind of quiet, shy guy that you just know has a fire inside of her waiting to be unleashed. She hints at it with her cheeky flirtation with Kit and her ‘sinful’ thoughts about Kit and disobeying her father. She really came into her own in the second half of the novel, though. She was no longer afraid to follow her heart, regardless of how negatively it would affect her.

The Tudor period is one I’ve been fascinated by since I was little and that was part of the reason that I accepted the review request for the first book in this series. In no other period would you have William Shakespeare making a cameo and debuting his first play on the stage. Along with that, the political turmoil surrounding the suspected plots to overthrow Elizabeth I and reinstate Mary Queen of Scots on the throne really rooted these characters that were so easily relatable to the modern day firmly in the late 1500s. The was also a lot of focus on the clash of beliefs and the harshness of the Puritans which would usually make me uncomfortable, but the period in which this novel is set almost required it.

There’s something about this series that just makes me smile. It’s laid-back and so easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable. Eve Edwards has created a cast of characters that are instantly loveable and it’s effortless to get behind them. The way that the main characters and storylines from the other books all intertwine throughout the series is a real favourite technique of mine, too.

I turned the last page of The Rogue’s Princess with a smile and a serious case of the warm fuzzies. I really hope Eve Edwards continues with The Lacey Chronicles as I love them. There is one Lacey brother left, after all...

Thanks to Razorbill for sending me a review copy.

For my British Books Challenge 2011 and 2011 YA Historical Fiction Challenge

Sophie