The Devilish Montague, the second book in the Rebellious Sons series, is at times romantic and at times very boring.

Blake Montague must marry in order to have the money to purchase a commission. He has a French communications and, according to him, he is the only one who can break it. His confidence is off-putting and I didn’t care for the character at all. He is rude and reckless. Montague fights duels and stands up against the very people he needs on his side and we are told it's because he has such a strict sense of what is right. It just comes across as hot-headedness and his feeling that he knows what is right in all situations.

Jocelyn Carrington has spent her whole life carrying for her mother and younger brother, who are both in their own world and cannot take care of themselves. I liked Jocelyn, but got a little tired of her martyrdom. She is afraid to love Blake, after they marry, because if he dies she will lose the house she is making into a home. She doesn’t want to have to uproot her mother and brother again and if Blake dies she would have to do that. I never understood why she equated this with making love to and loving Blake.

The code that Montague is trying to crack, his whole reason for marrying Jocelyn, is only a small part of the story and at times it isn’t mentioned at all. Then there are the French speaking birds and several attempts on Blake’s life. There was an inconsistency in what the plot of the story was. It all ties together in the end, but for most of the book I didn’t know why we were being told things and shown things that had nothing to do with the code or that did in some roundabout way.

I did love how Jocelyn teaches Blake about society. Jocelyn comes from a political family and is able to move about in that part of society with ease, whereas Blake cannot. He doesn’t have people skills. In this way their marriage is a perfect match. They balance each other out – She deals with people and he has intelligence.

This book just didn’t have a cohesive plot or an enjoyable hero for me.

~ Carrie