Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: An Earl’s Bet
SERIES: Rent a Rake
AUTHOR: Renee Dahlia
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 95 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026
BLURB:
HUGO CLAUDE PLAYFAIR, EARL OF HORDEN must follow the rules or bad things will happen. The only time he ever broke a rule was one night with Sir Earnest Pashley, but then Earnest camped on his front lawn for two days, making a scene. Several months later, Earnest accidentally falls asleep in Hugo’s bed after a dinner party. Hugo can’t risk a repeat, even though he really wants to break all the rules for Earnest. When Earnest bets that nothing will go wrong, he accepts the bet to prove his point (and maybe because he can’t resist Earnest) …
SIR EARNEST PASHLEY has abandonment issues thanks to be sent to an orphanage when he was ten. He falls in love (lust) easily and always makes sure he is the first to leave before the fun ends. Except once, when Lord Horden threw him out, and he disgraced himself by camping on Horden’s lawn in a dramatic gesture that went ignored. After a drunken dinner when he wakes up in Horden’s bed, by accident, he decides to get his … revenge?
This time he’ll be the one to leave first.
REVIEW:
This is book 2 in the Rent a Rake series, the saga of Sir Earnest Pashley. He is one of the four friends from the orphanage. He was dropped there at the age of 12 by his father. The abandonment issues are deep, even as he has earned himself a knighthood with his poetry. He spent the night in Hugo, the Earl of Horden’s, bed earlier in the year and was summarily thrown out the next day. He dramatically camped on the lawn for two days before giving up. However, he is now at a party to celebrate his friend’s winning horse (Wildgood, from book one), and who does he run into but Hugo himself.
I admit, Hugo was not likeable for me at first. When he sees Earnest at the party, “What are you doing here?” I thought, yes, he is the typical lord, arrogant and cruel. As you read, however, you get the backstory of Hugo and why he is like he is. “Hugo longed for the freedom with which Earnest lived his life.” Earnest has major baggage, but Hugo’s is just as heavy. They just show it in different ways. Hugo gets tense and haughty, Earnest “He just liked to be liked…” Hugo broke my heart a little bit. His father took him to brothels but he “…used the privacy of the room to give the women money and just talk.”
The two hook up at that party, and their secrets come out. This may be an unpopular opinion, but for me there was too much sex for the length of the book. At only 95 pages, there were at least three long scenes, and while some of that was integral to the personalities, it was overkill for me.
That aside, I liked the sharing of secrets and the opening of baggage between these two. Earnest and his (very bad!) poetry are less over the top than in the first book, which isn’t a bad thing. He’s still him, just a little more subdued. In public, anyway. I liked the solution to being together. That’s something that’s always tricky in historicals, and this made sense to me.
RATING: 
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