Welcome to Reformed Rakes. We’re a historical romance podcast steeped in depravity. Tune in if you’re a gun slinger, kissable spinster, or a second son with a chip on his shoulder.

We update the second or third Tuesday every month. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Spotify.

Recent Episode

Listen to our latest episode! Just Like Heaven was published in 2011 as the first in the Smyth-Smith Quartet and follows a family set in the Bridgerton world. Quinn’s most successful series is the Bridgerton series, even before the adaptation, features a large, tight-knit family that run around Regency London acting anachronistically and telling jokes that we’re told are hilarious and finding true love. A lot of romance time and effort has been spent on the Bridgerton series, book and television show, along with Quinn’s place as an outsized representation of romance to the non-romance world and this is mostly outside what we’re going to be talking about today. All the Rakes have read at least a handful of the Bridgerton series and none of us really enjoy the television show that much, so we wanted to read another one of Quinn’s books as our standalone exploration of her writing style, to try and parse what works or what doesn’t for us, along with what might be the longstanding appeal to readers for a Julia Quinn novel.

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The Reformed Rakes

Harvey Keitel in "The Duellists"

Chels Upton

ERRATIC DUELIST

Substack: The Loose Cravat

Dirk Bogarde as Sydney Carton in "A Tale of Two Cities"

Emma Kearney

DISGRUNTLED BARRISTER

Substack: Restorative Romance

James Spader in "Pretty in Pink"

Beth Haymond

THE SECOND SON

Substack: Ministrations