The Casanova Code

THE CASANOVA CODE

Book One: The Rake Patrol

Donna MacMeans

Berkley Sensation

ISBN 978-0-425-25083-9

June 2012

Historical Romance

In Victorian London, the Rake Patrol is born! Edwina Hargrove, devotee of puzzles and patterns, decodes a message in the Personals of a newspaper seeking a willing female companion. One of Edwina's friends works at the newspaper and announces that the ad was placed by none other than rake extraordinaire, Ashton Trewelyn. Determined to save innocents, Edwina and friends devise a scheme to shadow Ashton and foil his nefarious plans. Unknown to them, Ashton, newly returned from the serving in the army, has sworn off his rakish ways and places the ad to help a wounded friend. When there is another coded message from "the Guardians" that will meet at Trewelyn House, The Rake Patrol flies into action to save the innocents surely being molested there...Edwina and Ashton clash yet again and the attraction is undeniable and at high heat when they are trapped in a secret room together in the midst of Ashton's father's Japanese erotica collection...codes and plots and a secret society, Edwina's unwanted suitor and the other members of the Rake Patrol all add up to thwart a smooth road to a happy ending...

 

THE CASANOVA CODE, book one in the new Rake Patrol series, is a well-written, enjoyable and sensual Victorian romance with a modern though naive heroine and a wounded rake of a hero seeking paternal approval, both fully developed characters. MacMeans knows the period and makes the Victorian era come alive.

Reviewed by Debora Hosey

Rating:  4