I started this month’s TBR Challenge a tad overly confident. After all, how hard can it be to find a hero or heroine with lots of charisma? Surprisingly tough, as it turned out. I tried a Regency trad that advertised a charismatic hero, but I only made it a couple chapters in before I bailed.  And then there was the category romance billing its hero as an engaging ladies’ man. Umm… no, he wasn’t.  Then I dug into my box of historicals and realized that, while I’ve enjoyed a couple books in the series here and there, I’ve never read Pennyroyal Green straight through and I certainly hadn’t tried book one, The Perils of Pleasure.

Not only is Colin Eversea a hero with plenty of ‘rizz’, but the story is a real winner, and to my mind, it does exactly what the first book of a series needs to do. First of all, it tells a good story, but secondly, it sets up that story world in such a way that the reader finds themself longing to return.

While the romance in this novel is passionate, it is definitely a slow burn. After all, the author has to get Colin Eversea well away from his planned execution before the sexy times commence.  Yes, you read that right. The story begins as Colin Eversea is on his way to be hanged for murder. As he anticipates his own demise, the author uses that chapter to hop across points of view, handily introducing readers to the entire Eversea clan – and their Redmond rivals.

Since this is a romance, Colin naturally escapes and finds himself on the run with Madeline Greenway, the beautiful woman who saved him from the gallows. Colin insists he is innocent and that the only witness to the incident has disappeared. Armed only with this detail, the two work to skirt the soldiers searching London for Colin and go hunting for information.

As a hero, Colin definitely fits the TBR Challenge theme – he is indeed a charmer. Even after stewing in his own filth in jail for a bit, he still manages to be winsome wherever he goes and as the story progresses, we learn that, as the youngest of the four Eversea brothers, Colin’s charm and humor have been what gets him by. However, as Madeline herself observes, he is smarter and much more observant than most give him credit for.

Madeline has her own secrets, and many of the early chapters show her and Colin pushing at each other and trying to figure one another out. Colin comes off as light and charming while Madeline is more reserved, although each is closed off in their own way. The love scenes in this book come late in the story, but before we get there, we see Colin and Madeline going through a process of lowering their guard with one another.

Even though this romance takes place over a fairly short period of time, I definitely believed in the love story. That is because so much of the interaction between the leads focuses on getting to a point where they can truly be known to one another. That move from distance and reserve to vulnerability and trust is well written, and just as it draws the characters closer to one another, so the reader feels pulled into the story as well.

I’ve liked the couple of books that I read in this series previously, and I’m doubly glad that I decided to go back and start at the beginning. I liked Colin and Madeline’s story, but I also want to revisit this world as well.