Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long

How does this series just keep getting better?!? Game of Rogues is book 9 (!!!) in the Palace of Rogues series, and yet it made me not only resent having plans with my family on a Saturday night (we came in second at trivia night at the community center, hey hey!), AND stay up reading afterward until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, then ALSO sleep for like three hours and then wake up to read the rest, finally falling into an exhausted but satisfied slumber just before dawn. I’m telling you, it’s pure magic.

Guinevere (Ginny) Woodville, age 24, has been single-handedly raising her siblings for eight years since the death of her parents, only to have her brother inherit a new title and gamble away the family’s entire fortune. Ginny travels from the family’s home to London, where she stays at the Grand Palace on the Thames for a few weeks while she does whatever is necessary to get her brother’s debts forgiven so that their younger sisters still have dowries. Her first order of business is a visit to Lucifer’s Fall, the gentlemen’s club where her brother lost an exorbitant sum in a single night. The owner of Lucifer’s Fall, Gabriel Marchand, age late 30-something, doesn’t precisely laugh her out of the building, but he does offer to cancel part of the debt in exchange for a single night in his bed. And we’re off!

Gabriel is getting a new roof on his home, so it turns out that he, too, is staying at the Grand Palace on the Thames. When Ginny follows a clue her brother gave her about the buttons on the vest of the man who fleeced her brother, and the culprit turns out to be an old rival of her late father, Gabriel decides to follow her as she goes to beg the man to forgive the debt. And with that, he commits himself to being along for an entire adventure—with side quests!—as Ginny works to solve the problem and save the day.

This is such a gentle, tender, funny, sweet book! The owners, staff, and tenants at the Grand Palace are a delight to revisit over the course of the series, and this book is no exception. The tiny intrigues of each day are presented with such care and good humor. While of course there are heartbreaks and traumas, the entire book somehow ends up feeling like an extended hug. It’s the very best kind of slow burn, not one built on keeping secrets but rather one filled with yearning and building chapter by chapter until we the readers are as desperate as Ginny and Gabriel.

The resolution of the gambling debt plot is satisfying, and the epilogue featuring Dot was absolutely perfect. There are hints that the series may be winding to a close, but I truly hope not. If you haven’t started this series yet, you definitely can read Game of Rogues as a standalone, but I highly recommend starting with book 1, Lady Derring Takes a Lover, and reading them in order.