Book 3 in Winner Takes All series. Would be best if books 1 and 2 were read. (2.5 is honestly more of a stand alone and not pertinent at all to the other three stories)

Dr. Rhys Gray stayed with the Babcock family for a while, treating Sir Barty's gout. After he returned home to Greenwich, he kept corresponding with Sir Barty's daughter, Margaret. Margaret is invited to present her roses to the horticulture society, and travels to London, where she is reunited with Rhys. Except Rhys is sort of betrothed to Sylvia, a neighbor of their country home. The more time Margaret and Rhys spend with each other, the more they seem to be a perfect match. If only his mother hadn't promised he'd marry Sylvia.

I loved both Rhys and Margaret. So much- I cannot even express it. It was so refreshing to have a character like Margaret! However, the fact that Sylvia is basically engaged to Rhys for basically the entire book is annoying. ESPECIALLY because book two ([book:The Lie and the Lady|25101860]) has basically the same conflict. That really kept me from enjoying this as much as I could have with great characters like Rhys and Margaret (both the fact that there is another woman, and the fact that the plot is repetitive of book two in a way).

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A sweet historical romance with plenty of love and passion.

Thank you Netgalley for a copy for an honest review

A Daring Pursuit by Kate Bateman
Reckless Rivals book 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ As soon as I saw there was a new Kate Bateman book I just had to read it. I think I have loved every book of hers I have read. This one was no different.

Her characters are fully developed. The chemistry is strong and the banter is witty! Loved it. I couldn't put it down. Carys and Tristan. What a match, I love how they tease and go out of their way to annoy each other, when deep down you know it's because they secretly pine for one another. Watching them realize and accept this made the story amazing.

I am fully looking forward to her next book.

**I received an arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

~ Paragraphs and Petticoats ~

I really enjoyed Rhys and Margaret's story! I really liked that they became friends through their correspondence to each other and then when they see each other again, it starts to turn into something more. This was a great addition to the Winner Takes All series!

Utterly fabulous!!
This is the first book I have read by Ms Noble and I can say without a doubt that it will not be the last. The Dare and the Doctor is a wonderfully romantic and engrossing book, that will keep reading right up to the last page with out stalling, Wonderfully romantic and brilliantly written, very highly recommended!!

Of them all, The Dare and the Doctor has my favorite romance, though shippiness still continues to be Noble’s weakest element.

Rhys and Margaret’s roots go back to The Lie and the Lady, and I was looking forward to their book. The two share a bond of intellectual curiosity, not much enjoying society, and general nerdiness. That’s totally my kind of ship, but Noble doesn’t manage to build up that yearning passion that I love so much in a good ship. Margaret and Rhys totally work, and I believe in them as a couple, but it just didn’t hit me in the feelsy bone, you know?

As ever, I’m impressed with the quality of Noble’s writing and historical setting. This one’s especially delightful, because I love any historical romance where women thrive in pursuits not usually allowed to them. Margaret’s skill with flower cultivation is impressive, and I love that Rhys not allows it but actively encourages her. He’s very much not an alpha male asshole, which is great. I could have done without the subplot of the jealous love rival, however. I don’t enjoy the mean girl villains of romance.

All told, this series is very much worth a read if you’re into historical romance, so long as you don’t mind sacrificing shippiness for the quality of everything else in the series.

A very nice read for inbetween. I really enjoyed the leads and the background story. Well done.

I divined this book would be an intelligently witty read and I have not been disappointed. The Dare and the Doctor is a readers romp from the very beginning… (Keep reading for an opportunity to win a free copy!)The book begins with letters (can you get any more reader geek than that?) that can only be leading to one thing–love. But the question is what kind of love? Rhys and Margaret have an uncommon connection, one that runs soul deep, forging a friendship unlike either of them has ever had before. But does that really mean that things must get romantic? The two are absolutely adamant that they mustn’t, not necessarily, I mean really <exasperation>! But will their friends, who meddle at every turn, prove correct that the imposed chaperoning is in fact for both of their good, not just a nicety to ensure propriety, but a tool to establish their genuine affection as legitimate in the high society that they both dismiss and are slave to. There is so much good stuff here to sink your reader’s teeth into.

A smart and beautifully unassuming woman. A reassuringly grounded, intellectual gentleman. A friendship born of mutual interest and companionable comfort. Families in need and distress. The hubris, ego, dictates and fickleness of the ton. The warmth, understanding, love and affection of friends. And all of the complications that conflicts among these parties create. There are surprises to make you gasp, tenderness that will make you sigh, shortsideness that will make you fuss, and a wonderful festival of forthrightness that will make you cheer.

This book worm loved this particular foray into regency London.

Kate Noble writes romance of complexity and thought. And her most recent The Dare and the Doctor is wrought in this vein: thoughtful, with nuanced characters caught in believable dilemmas, and with growing feelings of love for the wrong person. Miss Bates admits that, while she enjoyed the novel in its entirety, prose and characterization and plot, her favourite part was the opening section for its epistolary nature. Miss Margaret Babcock of Lincolnshire, horticulturist extraordinare, she of rose cross-breeding fame, found a friend and kindred spirit in Dr. Rhys Gray, former army surgeon and now Greenwich-based, when he attended her father at their estate and relieved him of his gout. Since, and serving in a marvelous series of exchanged letters, Margaret and Rhys have enjoyed a close, warm, and witty correspondence, deepening and growing their friendship. Knowing that Margaret’s dream is to present her prize roses to the Horticultural Society, Rhys arranges for her to meet with them in London. Margaret travels to London to stay with their mutual friends, Lord Ashby, Ned; wife, Phoebe; and cherubically fun six-month-old, Edward. Rhys, in turn, travels from his Greenwich laboratory to London to reconnect with old and dear friends Ned and Phoebe and see Margaret.

Through the epistolary wit and warmth of Rhys and Margaret’s letters, Miss Bates delighted in the hero and heroine’s introverted natures. Witness some of their exchanges: Rhys: “I too am glad I came back from war. It relieved me of my desire to travel, and I find myself happier and more at home in my laboratory than anywhere else.”; Margaret: “I think it best if I continue spending my winter trying to graft roses. I make my own fun.” There is nothing more attractive, at least to Miss B., than self-contained, self-entertaining, absorbed-in-their-work protagonists who find love in each other. It bodes well for their future lives: together and apart, happy at work and love. Before our Margaret and Rhys can achieve connubial bliss, they must suffer, otherwise this isn’t a romance but an idyll and idylls are not what the genre is about. Suffering comes in the form of, in true introverted fashion, other people, namely Rhys’s large, amusing, but selfishly demanding family, “His troubles, which took the form of two brothers, three sisters, a nephew, a mother, and a dog older than dirt” – and one Rosamond-née-Vincy-Lydgate-like near-fiancée, Miss Sylvia Morton.

Sadly, there is an “understanding” between the Grays and Mortons. When the plebeian nouveau-riche Mortons moved into the Grays’ neighbouring estate, Lord Bellamy Gray, Rhys’s arrogant wastrel father, fought a duel with Mr. Morton, injuring him. Lord Gray was then compelled to leave the country with Rhys’s elder brother, Francis. Rhys’s mother wants Rhys to marry Miss Morton, thus ensuring Mr. Morton’s pardon and Lord Gray’s and fils’s return to hearth, home, and family. Alas, Rhys is temperamentally, physically, and spiritually linked to Margaret. Noble has truly rendered two characters who are most suited to each other. But Rhys dearly loves his flawed family and cannot bring himself to deny his mother’s wishes. As a result, Miss Morton plays sly third fiddle to Rhys and Margaret and foils their romance time and again. Noble has managed to write a great “Other Woman” character in Sylvia, without making her caricaturish, anymore than Eliot’s great portrayal of self-absorption and moral expediency, Rosamond Vincy-Lydgate, is simplistic.

Having read and reviewed Noble’s The Game and the Governess, whose hero and heroine we encounter in The Dare and the Doctor as Rhys and Margaret’s friends, Ned and Phoebe, one thing Miss Bates must say for Noble is that she has a wonderful capacity to make her heroines incredibly strong and strong in their vulnerability while heroes flounder on moral grounds. Rhys wants Margaret with his heart, soul, and body, she is truly is “other half,” but he’s willing to sacrifice his happiness, and as a consequence, Margaret’s, on the altar of family loyalty, love, and obligation. But Rhys is also an incredibly honourable and giving sort, he cannot be giving towards his family and be less than the best of friends to Margaret. So, when Margaret is beset by the London ton‘s social whirl, he sets her free to tend her roses and build a garden-conservatory for Ned and Phoebe by saying to her, ” ‘Tell Sylvia and Phoebe you need to spend the next few days in. You’re not receiving.’ She met his eyes. ‘You have that right,’ he whispered. ‘Everyone has the right to themselves.’ ” Ah, Rhys, the reader thinks, “You speak as much about yourself as you do Margaret.” In the end, however, with Noble’s gift for a strong heroine, Margaret sets Rhys free to love and be himself.

Kate Noble’s The Dare and the Doctor is a wonderful friends-to-lovers romance, rendered in a historical period more difficult to achieve than in contemporary romance. When Rhys finally proposes to Margaret, he says: ” ‘Will you marry me, my very best of friends?’ ” The journey to this point is fraught, with Rhys being pulled in so many directions of love and obligation that he forgets the one “thing needful,” the love and happiness of the person who most completes him and, in turn, his own. The Dare and the Doctor is a lovely romance, maybe Noble could’ve “let go” of some of its length (it dragged in places), but it’s a minor quibble. With Miss Austen, who would’ve enjoyed Noble’s romance, Miss Bates says it shows evidence of “a mind lively and at ease,” Emma.

Kate Noble’s The Dare and the Doctor is published by Simon and Schuster’s Pocket Books. It was released in November 2016 and may be found at your preferred vendors. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Pocket Books, via Netgalley.

Dr. Rhys Gray and Miss Margaret Babcock have met. Margaret's father is a local squire. Rhys and Margaret have been corresponding , discussing their various academic interests and scientific type pursuits. Margaret is a talented horticulturist spending most of her time in the greenhouse . There she activated and studied a variety of plants and flowers adhering to scientific methods of study, experimentation, and recording. Margaret is happiest when working with her roses. Margaret is seeking to grow a new variety of hardy China Rose that her late mother had loved. Margaret is shy and wary of people and places she doesn’t know. Then Rhys let's Margaret know that he has spoken to one of the most influential members of the Horticultural Society about her rose and the member has asked Margaret to come to London to present it to him. Rhys finally talks Margaret into coming to London. She is to stay with the Turnes who will be staying with The Earl and Countess OF Ashby. Once there Margaret discovers the conservatory is not suitable and she sets to putting it right. Yet her work is constantly being disrupted. Rhys and Margaret have something going on even if they don’t admit it. Rhys struggles with his feelings for Margaret. Rhys had been engaged to another woman kind of. But the woman is a social climber -Sylvia whose family was a former enemy Rhys was to marry Sylvia to make up for what his father had done to Sylvia’s father . Rhys father and older brother had ran away to Italy after his father killed Sylvia’s father. But Rhys is the only one who truly understands Margaret and encourages her. Then Rhys is threatened to be dragged into court for breach of contract because he wants to be with Margaret and she with him.
I liked this story a lot. I liked how Margaret and Rhys went slowly from friends to so much more even with Sylvia in the way. This is a little slow paced. This did however make me choke up at times is always good for a story to reach me and make me react with my feelings. I liked the plot a lot. But there was a bit too much drama from Rhys’s family. I liked the twists and turns of this story a lot and loved the characters and I recommend.

I honestly could not get through this book! I tried and tried, but just was not for me

Passing on this review - never downloaded it to my kindle.

Good story! I enjoyed how the plot moved and the characters resolved their issues. I would recommend to others.

This is the third book in Kate Noble’s Winner Takes All series and the one I enjoyed the most. That’s because of the hero as much as the heroine.

I liked the fact that our heroine had a unique talent as a botanist, but I loved the relationship between her and our hero that starts off as a friendship forged through the correspondence about both their passions, botany. It eventually turns into romance, but I loved the journey they took toward each other.

This story is all character driven, fast paced and vastly entertaining and I highly recommend it!

Melanie for b2b