2014 book 309

Sarah Maclean's A Rogue By Any Other Name
So in this first book in the Rules of Scoundrels series, our dude is a man who was cheated out of pretty much everything but his title on a game of cards and is hellbent on revenge like ten years later, and meanwhile the guy who got all his property has lost a very pretty piece of it to ANOTHER guy, who has added it to the dowry of his eldest daughter, a spinster (she had a courtship go bad early on and things have never quite worked out since). (Also meanwhile, the dude has built himself a nice fortune by co-owning a famous gambling hall/den of iniquity with characters who will presumably star in later books.) Handily, the dude and the girl with the dowry were actually childhood friends, but instead of asking nicely, he basically kidnaps her into marriage. Because he is a ROGUE. I actually really liked both these characters, all the other characters, their world, Maclean's writing in general, etc, BUT this is one of those books where if either party was ever honest about his or her feelings, the book would immediately end, so things have to be dragged out. I mean, you know how things are gonna end in a romance novel! Don't make the suspense the eye-rolling dumb kind! The epilogue has me pretty psyched for book two, though.  B/B+.