Review: Rescued by a Wicked Baron

Rescued by a Wicked Baron by Scarlett Osborne
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Against my better judgment, I chose to read and review Scarlett Osborne's "Rescued by a Wicked Baron" even though I did not like the author's first book, which I found to be historically inaccurate with a fairly ridiculous plot. Unfortunately, the same problems that were present in that first book are once again present in this one. I found this book to be riddled with historical inaccuracies, as well as an outlandish plot and unintelligent, unlikable characters.

As I noted in my review of the author's previous book, details are incredibly important in a historical novel, and the author seems to get a lot of details about early 19th century England mixed up. For example, hotels and hotel bars didn't exist in the early 19th century as she seems to have been envisioning them. There were lodging houses and coaching inns, but not hotels, as such, prior to the mid-19th century. Patrick and his friends would likely have gone to a gentleman's club like Brooks or White's to play cards and drink, not to a hotel bar.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, is that the author doesn't seem to have done adequate research on England's early 19th century justice system or how criminal law would have applied to members of the peerage. The exact year when this story is supposed to be taking place is unclear, but if it is prior to 1841 (which seems probable) and it was Robert's first offense, he likely could have claimed "privilege of peerage" to escape punishment for his crimes since he wasn't being accused of murder or treason. There still would have been a scandal, I'm sure, but he wouldn't have gone to jail and his creditors couldn't have taken his lands as repayment for his debts.

In addition, when Catherine, her aunt, and her cousin Edmund attended a ball, the author repeatedly made reference to their "table," as if they had assigned seating and stayed there for the duration of the evening. That would not have been the case since the main purpose of such a social event was for debutantes on the "Marriage Mart" to mingle with eligible gentlemen in order to make a match. They would have been in the ballroom and dancing for most of the evening, socializing with different people, not sitting at a table with the same group of acquaintances the whole time. They only would have sat at a table during supper, which was a relatively brief part of the overall event. Finding a partner for the supper dance and the meal to follow was a big deal for debutantes because it allowed them to spend extra time with a prospective suitor.

Aside from these (and other) historical inaccuracies, I had a number of problems with the plot and characters of this book. First, the "heroine," Catherine, must have been really pretty, or something, to have not one but two gentlemen so interested in her, because not only is her family embroiled in scandal, she has no dowry and zero personality to go along with it. All Catherine ever seems to do is hide in her room and mope. Occasionally she embroiders, and she "diarizes," which apparently involves writing about her daily activities and feelings. I can't imagine that anything she writes about would be very interesting since she doesn't really do anything interesting!

As for our "hero," Patrick, Lord Ramshay, the author herself described him several times as a "buffoon" and I would have to agree. For example, on a couple of occasions he attempts to confront his blackmailers, by himself, armed only with a one-shot pistol. For some reason he seems to think that they will back down based solely on his waving a pistol around and making some empty threats. Even if he had managed to shoot one of his blackmailers, the others could have overpowered him easily before he could even attempt to reload his pistol. Also, if these blackmailers were really as dangerous as described, what would a few threats from Patrick mean to them?

Regarding the story itself, there were so many things that didn't make sense to me, but I will just note a few of them here.
*Where does Lord Ramshay keep getting the money to pay those extravagant bribes for information as he's trying to track down who is behind the plot against him? He himself said that paying the most recent blackmail demand was going to wipe out his supply of cash, and he wouldn't even be able to pay his servants until the next rents came in.
*Why wouldn't Edmund and Catherine hire Bow Street to look for Patrick, or at least take a couple of nice, strong footmen along with them on their little escapade? It's frankly a miracle that the two of them didn't get both themselves and Patrick seriously hurt or killed. For heaven's sake, they took a hammer and knocked down a wall to get into a warehouse at the docks! How did no one see or hear them or question what they were doing?
*The "evidence" that Catherine and Edmund followed to find Patrick was circumstantial, at best, and never should have actually led them to him. For example, they found a pile of ropes in a warehouse and somehow "just knew" that meant that Patrick had been held hostage there. REALLY? Because there was rope in a building at the docks where rope might reasonably be stored for use aboard a ship?

Finally, in general this was not a particularly well-written book. The author has a very repetitious writing style that became incredibly annoying to me by the end of the book. There were also a lot of typos and words misused, among other problems.

Based on all of the above, I cannot recommend this book.

*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

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