I have been meaning to read Beverly Jenkins forever, and was so happy to score an eARC of To Catch a Raven, book three in her Women Who Dare series. While I did not read the previous two in the series, To Catch a Raven was exciting and easy to follow!

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The summary, from Amazon:

“A living legend.” — Julia Quinn

The newest novel in USA Today bestselling author Beverly Jenkins’s compelling Women Who Dare series features a fearless grifter who goes undercover to reclaim the stolen Declaration of Independence.

Lying and cheating may be sins to some people, but for Raven Moreaux, it is a way of life. She comes from a long line of grifters and couldn’t be prouder…Until she’s forced to help the government.

A former Confederate official is suspected of stealing the Declaration of Independence, and Raven, posing as his housekeeper, is tasked with getting it back. Her partner is the too handsome Braxton Steel. Masquerading as a valet/driver, Brax is also supposed to be her “husband.” He has his own reasons for doing this job, but when their pretend marriage ignites into fiery passion, they’ll have to put everything—including their hearts—on the line.

Buy To Catch a Raven here.

Raven lives with her family in New Orleans, though she’s traveled throughout the country living a life full of danger and heists. Braxton grew up in Boston, wealthy, educated, and comfortable, and now owns his own tailoring business. When a lady Pinkerton blackmails Raven and Braxton working with her to find a stolen copy of the Declaration of Independence. Raven and Braxton must pretend to be a married couple to work as domestic servants for the family in Charlotte suspected of having the copy.

The immediate attraction between Raven and Braxton is only compounded when Dorrie, Raven’s adopted cousin, predicts the two of them will get married – and Dorrie’s predictions are never wrong. Raven is extremely reluctant to give in to her feelings and desires, but the passion between Brax and Raven is hard to resist. Raven also worries about being attached to Braxton given their differences in background. While Raven grew up poor and barely knows how to read due to dropping out of school and working from a very young age, Braxton is wealthy and highly educated.

The villain in this one is devious in a wonderful, cheesy 80’s romance novel sort of way. It was great to watch her get her comeuppance a few times throughout the novel. She’s also evil in the way a lot of supposedly good people are. She has ambitions that she believes are for the best and has no problem stepping on others on the way to reach her goals. There’s also a sweet and funny second chance romance between Raven’s mother and Braxton’s father.

While I never read anything else in this series or Jenkins’ other books before, it was very easy to follow. I could tell there were cameos from characters from other books in this series as well as other series by the author, which will be fun Easter eggs for her regular readers.

Overall, this was a 4 star read for me. I loved it and will be reading more of Jenkins’ books in the future.