Review: A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare

When a devilish lord and a bluestocking set off on the road to ruin…
Time is not on their side. 

Minerva Highwood, one of Spindle Cove’s confirmed spinsters, needs to be in Scotland.
Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, a rake of the first order, needs to be… anywhere but Spindle Cove.

These unlikely partners have one week
-to fake an elopement
-to convince family and friends they’re in “love”
-to outrun armed robbers
-to survive their worst nightmares
-to travel four hundred miles without killing each other
All while sharing a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night.

What they don’t have time for is their growing attraction. Much less wild passion. And heaven forbid they spend precious hours baring their hearts and souls.

Suddenly one week seems like exactly enough time to find a world of trouble.
And maybe…just maybe…love.

This book is amazing, let's get my opinion on record immediately.  A Week to be Wicked is Ms. Dare's best work yet.   When I downloaded an ARC, I convinced myself I could wait to read it.  You see, I wanted to savor this book, to make it last for as long as possible.  Nope.  Didn't happen.  I laughed; I cried; I tried to read slower; I inhaled.  And at the heart of A Week to be Wicked is a simple, sweet yet insanely hot love story, one I hated to see end.

  

Oh, for the love of tits. How did this happen to him? He had the best of intentions, and then somehow...
Your good intentions have the impact of mortar shells. 

On one hand, we have Colin Sandhurst, a rake in Spindle Cove not by his choosing.  He wants to be anywhere but there.  Colin's foppish exterior hides the fact that he is intelligent yet haunted by the accident that claimed his parents' lives and that he truly enjoys calling Minerva by any other "M" name he can think of.

"If I don't have a bed companion, I lie awake all night."
He nudged toward the soft heat of her body and gathered the blanket around them. "So you may want to rethink your plans, pet. If we did undertake this journey...I'd need you in my bed."

On the other hand, there's Minerva Highwood, a set-in-stone spinster who studies rocks and is intent on presenting her discovery from Spindle Cove to the Royal Geological Society in Edinburgh.  She believes Colin would be the perfect man to help her travel to Edinburgh, and she suggests they fake an elopement as reasonable excuse to leave Spindle Cove.

"Perhaps not, but I think you do want kissing." He nuzzled the curve of her cheek, and his voice dropped to a sensual whisper. "Don't you?"
She did. Oh, she did.

As luck would have it, their journey is not an easy one.  There's robbers and bandits and lies, oh the lies Colin tells in the hopes of making their travels easier.  But what happens on their journey is that they discover each other -- their true selves, the selves they keep hidden and/or protected from the rest of the world -- and they find themselves falling in love.


  

"Because..." Because I doubt myself. "Because I know how easily you lie."
He clutched her bottom, bringing her pelvis flush with his.  His hardness ground against her, sending pleasure rushing through her veins.
"Feel that?" he growled.
She nodded. Good Lord, how could she not?
"I've been hard for you for days, Minerva.  Since before we even left Spindle Cove.  If you believe nothing else, believe this." He rocked against her.  "This doesn't lie." 

For such an unlikely couple, Colin and Minerva are perfect for one another, absolutely 100% perfect.  You won't be at all disappointed with A Week to be Wicked.


(A very special thank you to Avon and HarperCollins for providing me with an ARC of A Week to be Wicked.)