Review: Lady's Seduction (The Lady's Rogue Companion #3) by C.K. Mackenzie

                                                                 

Print Length: 158 pages

Publisher: C.K. Mackenzie (May 15, 2026)

From Goodreads.com:  A second chance at happiness? Only of her own making…

Widowed Lady Sabine Cogan married well in an effort to escape her fractured family. With a sickly husband who needed constant nursing, happiness wasn’t in the cards for her, and neither was love. When her husband’s title passed to his third cousin, she washed her hands of the whole thing, took her dowager settlement, and promised herself a life of freedom and of discovering what made her happy.

The thrill of adventure? Yes. Romance? Not so much…

Grant Blackwell, Duke of Mowbray, enjoyed his life. He did as he pleased and with whom and didn’t much care about the consequences. Marriage? He’d get around to it. There were women to seduce and bets to place and fine wine to drink. But then a horse-riding accident with the seemingly precipitous arrival of a beautiful widow makes him reconsider his life.

Fun? Adventure? Seduction? All yes. Falling in love? Not her…

Sabine never seriously considered engaging in a seduction. But with every stolen kiss that made her crave more, she reevaluated her options. A heated affair with the handsome duke? Not her worst choice in life. Stealing kisses is one thing but spending time with the brilliant and bold Sabine steals Grant’s breath and tempts him like no other.

Can they find their future together? Or will their fears of being hurt and abandoned crush any hope of a happy future?

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

This was a cute, quick read that, despite being the third book in a series, can easily be picked up without having read the first two. Everything you need to follow along is technically there, which made it a nice, low-commitment read.

So why only three stars?

The biggest issue for me was the pacing of Sabine and Grant’s relationship. They meet, fall in love, and get married in what feels like the span of a month… maybe two. Because of that, I never really felt like I knew either of them beyond a surface level, which made some of their choices harder to fully buy into.

We’re told repeatedly that Grant is a rake and a rogue, Sabine's friend Julia certainly makes sure to remind her of that fact, and even Grant himself admits to having a steady stream of women in his past, but we’re never actually shown that side of him. Aside from some light flirting with Sabine, it’s obvious pretty early on that he wants more from her than just another conquest, which made all that buildup feel a little hollow.

And then there’s Sabine. We’re told she married the first man who offered just to escape her father, that her father was cruel, that one of her brothers was disinherited… but we’re not given much detail beyond that. Maybe some of this was covered in earlier books, but even a brief recap would have gone a long way here. The same goes for her late husband, we’re told he was cold and disinterested, but since we only meet Sabine after his death, we never actually see that dynamic either. Even small details, like her hosting lavish dinner parties, feel a bit disconnected when we don’t really understand what her life looked like at the time.

However, there were elements I genuinely enjoyed. Sabine and Grant’s early banter was fun, and I loved the moment where Grant shows up with what is essentially an edible arrangement for her horse after his own spooked it. Honestly, that was probably one of the highlights for me. But once their relationship shifted from getting to know each other to sneaking around and engaging in scandalous behavior that could have easily ruined her reputation, the story lost some of its charm. Especially because, for someone so determined to make her own choices, Sabine kept putting herself in situations that would have taken that choice away from her entirely if they’d been caught.

That being said, by the end, I also found myself losing patience with her. Grant makes it clear (multiple times), that his feelings are genuine, and yet she shuts him down at every turn, insisting she won’t “step willingly into another cage no matter how gilded” and that “tomorrows can turn into prisons.” And while I understand what the author was trying to convey, without actually seeing the experiences that shaped that mindset, it came across as more frustrating than sympathetic.

Taking all of those things into consideration, I didn’t dislike this enough to write the author off completely. There’s definitely potential there, and I’d be open to giving them another try down the line, whether that’s with this series or something new however, remains to be seen.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.