Regency Bad Boys

Amy Rose Bennett is an Australian author who has a passion for penning emotion-packed historical romances. Of course, her strong-willed heroines and rakish heroes always find their happily ever after.

A former speech pathologist, Amy is happily married to her very own romantic hero and has two lovely, very accomplished adult daughters. When she's not creating stories, Amy loves to cook up a storm in the kitchen, lose herself in a good book or a witty rom-com, and when she can afford it, travel to all the places she writes about. Welcome, Amy Rose!

Regency bad boys… Are you a fan of the alpha-historical-romance hero with a bit of a bad-boy edge? I know I am. In fact, one of my absolutely favourite historical romance heroes is Lisa Kleypas’s Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent in The Devil in Winter. He’s just so wicked and alpha and delish!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7939893-the-devil-in-winter

In my soon-to-be released Regency romance How to Catch a Wicked Viscount—Book 1 in the Disreputable Debutantes series with Berkley—the wicked viscount in question is Nate Hastings, Lord Malverne, a devil-may-care rake who maintains he is ‘not the marrying kind’ whatsoever. While the Disreputable Debutantes series focuses on the trial and tribulations of a small group of aspiring debutantes who are expelled from a young ladies’ academy for ‘conduct unbecoming’, it’s also equally about Nate and his rakehell friends who fall head-over-heels in love with these resilient young women. 

After Miss Sophie Brightwell—the shy, bookish heroine of How to Catch a Wicked Viscount—and her friends find that the academy scandal continues to cling to them even after three years in exile, they reason that the only eligible men likely to overlook their stained reputations and consider them as potential wives are the real ‘bad boys’ of the ton with even worse reputations—rakehells. Indeed, Lady Chelmsford, the aunt of one of Sophie’s closest friends and academy-scandal-partner-in-crime, Lady Charlotte Hastings, maintains that reformed rakehells make the very best husbands. But as Sophie rightly points out, how does one make an elusive, marriage-averse rake fall in love with you? Thus, begins Sophie’s quest to capture the heart of wicked Lord Malverne, Charlotte’s older brother, who she has a huge crush on.

Image courtesy of: Berkley Romance

I, for one, can attest to Lady Chelmsford’s belief as I’ve been blissfully wed to my own ‘reformed rake’ for twenty-six years. My dear hubby is a former military pilot, and yes, I’ll happily confess that when we first met, I was drawn to his bad boy image, plus the fact he rocked a pair of aviator sunglasses (and still does).  

Image courtesy of: http://gph.is/1X80W12

Nate, Lord Malverne and his rakish friends also have military backgrounds; they all served in Wellington’s army and fought at the Battle of Waterloo. They’ve all been adversely affected by their time on the battlefield to some degree and on their return to Polite Society, they all ‘party’ a little too hard i.e. they spend most of their days indulging in ‘wine, women, and song’ and challenging each other to wicked wagers. For instance, at the beginning of How to Catch a Wicked Viscount, Nate and the Earl of Langdale (the ‘errant earl’ hero of Book 2 in the series, out in April next year) are tasked with stealing an item of underwear from a married countess with her own scandalous reputation. Indeed, Lord Langdale ends up having an adulterous affair with the countess (yes, he’s a very bad boy, but you’ll have to read How to Catch an Errant Earl to see how he’s reformed by the bluestocking heroine, Miss Arabella Jardine).

In How to Catch a Wicked Viscount a terribly foxed Nate accidentally compromises Sophie, a compromise that has him striking a wicked bargain with Charlotte: to avoid a scandal and the parson's mousetrap, Nate must help Sophie snare a husband. But as Nate fulfills his obligation and begins to instruct the lovely Sophie in the art of luring rakes, he soon finds himself battling his own fierce attraction to her.

Of course, the real rakehells of the Regency and Georgian period could be very wicked indeed and were infamous, not just for drinking and gambling to excess and fornicating with impunity, but sometimes engaging in outrageous debauchery that was beyond the pale. A prime example is Lord Byron—the English peer, Romantic poet, and revolutionary—who was famously described by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’. Byron, who was well-known for his sexual escapades (apparently with both men and women) was rumoured to have had an incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. They scandal was so great, his marriage to Anne ‘Annabella’ Millbanke broke down and in 1816, he was driven from England. He remained abroad until his death in 1824 in Greece during the Greek War of Independence. Even though Byron’s thoroughly wicked reputation endures to this day, I do love some of his poetry. She Walks in Beauty is one of my favourite poems (and indeed, it features in a scene or two in How to Catch a Wicked Viscount).

Image courtesy of: Wikimedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron#/media/File:Byron_1813_by_Phillips.jpg)

So, inquiring minds want to know: how bad do you actually like historical Romancelandia’s ‘bad boys’ to be? Is there any behaviour that you can’t forgive in a rake before the heroine manages to turn him into an adoring, devoted partner-for-life? And do you have a favourite Regency romance rakehell? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

For lovers of rakish heroes, How to Catch a Wicked Viscount is out on August 27th:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L7SS1GT/

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2SDHLQG

Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/2A0iOZ1

Apple: https://apple.co/2Eladnf

Google Play: https://bit.ly/2y5t54y

Amy's website and social media links:

Website: http://amyrosebennett.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amyrosebennett.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmyRoseBennett

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/amy-rose-bennett

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Amy-Rose-Bennett/e/B00JP0VMBM/

Love to love… the Regency romance genre and its wicked rakehells.

Love to laugh… with my own reformed ‘bad boy’ husband every single day.

Love to learn… about the fascinating lives of real historical figures.