4.5 stars This was one of my fav reads of 2019, a year in which I read far more mystery/thrill— Check out my Apr 2020 and Jul 2020 #Bookstagram posts —
4.5 stars This was one of my fav reads of 2019, a year in which I read far more mystery/thriller type books than I ever have before. This one was SUPERB.
It’s told nonlinearly from various points of view, and centers around Hattie, a HS senior who is found brutally stabbed to death. We watch her senior year unfold, hurtling is towards her violent end, while also following the subsequent murder investigation and seeing the destructions that her life and death wrought. The two timelines kind of track one another, slowly building the tension as we get closer and closer to discovering what really happened to Hattie.
EXCERPT:
Most people think acting is make-believe. Like it’s a big game where people put on costumes and feign kisses or stab wounds and then pretend to gasp and die. They think it’s a show. They don’t understand that acting is becoming someone else, changing your thoughts and needs until you don’t remember your own anymore. You let the other person invade everything you are and then you turn yourself inside out, spilling their identity onto the stage like a kind of bloodletting. Sometimes I think acting is a disease, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t know what it’s like to be healthy. [...] You knew you were playing it right when your audience was happy. They smiled and praised you and told each other how wonderful you were. Maybe part of you wish they’d see past the act, even once, and tell you Bridge Jones-style that they liked you just for who you were, but that never happened. No one wanted to go see independent movies with you. They laughed at the books you were reading and thought you were snobby because of the way you talked. So you put on the show, waiting for your real life to begin someday. And the applause made things inside of you warm that you hadn’t even known needed to be warmed up. The real you might be so much colder. So you kept doing it.
I’d acted my entire life and so far it’d only gotten me here, to the first day fo senior year at Pine Valley High School.
He kissed her as though he sought to memorize the feel and taste of her. As if she were the only woman in the world. And she, Gertrude Kil
4.5 stars
He kissed her as though he sought to memorize the feel and taste of her. As if she were the only woman in the world. And she, Gertrude Killoran, long invisible to all, felt what it was to be wanted and hungered for . . . and so very much alive because of it.
Christ Caldwell continues to delight me with her historical romances! She's an extremely prolific author, even for the genre, and yet it took me a longtime to finally read some of her books. For some reason, her earlier works, even when I've gone back and tried them, haven't done it for me, but her recent ones have always been hits, this being the second series of hers now that I absolutely loved ("Sinful Brides" and now "Wicked Wallflowers"). Note I did skip the book right before this in the series, though not for any particular reason.
ALL of the books are connected—I think even beyond just these two series, but these are the ones I know—so even though within the series they should be read in order, her works should probably be read in order of publication overall, because even when a new series starts, it's not really the "true" beginning.
SUMMARY. Gertrude is the last of the Killoran siblings—well, of the adult Killoran siblings—left unwed, and this story centers around her and the youngest Killoran sibling, who isn't really a Killoran at all. Their connections are not based on blood as it is, but when it comes to Stephen, the youngest of them, the story is even more complicated, as it has been uncovered in earlier books in the series that he was actually born the son of a marquess.
When Stephen was 4 years old, his parents' home was burned down, his pregnant mother murdered, and he was stolen away—all because of Mac Diggory, a man who played the villain in an earlier series, and whose legacy has lived on and driven multiple plotlines (and love stories) long past his death. Diggory is also the real father—in bloodline only—of Gertrude, our heroine.
This creates quite a setup, since our hero is Stephen's father, Edwin. So yeah, QUITE the star-crossed pair we have here (that remains a steady theme throughout this series—like I said, Diggory casts a long shadow). This book starts heavy with emotion, and all of it understandable: Stephen, an already angry and somewhat troubled boy, is being torn away from the only family and life he has known; Edwin, who has lived steeped in grief for 7 years and in isolation, with everyone thinking he murdered his wife and child, has finally recovered his son, only to be hated and mistrusted by him; and Gertrude, who feels like she has always been the weak one of the family, is having to watch the boy she almost considers a son be ripped away from her and she feels powerless to do anything about it, and so takes everyone by surprise, including herself, by insisting she be allowed to accompany Stephen and then stay with him.
Caldwell does it all superbly though, and all three of these characters, who each play a central role, are very well developed and engender so much sympathy from the reader. I found Stephen a bit annoying at times, as I have in the previous books—especially in how he seems to look down on Gertrude—but he started to win me over.
MAIN CHARACTERS. I absolutely adored Gertrude. Her self-doubt is palpable and every time we would get just a few flashes of it in stark detail, it broke my heart. How she saw herself as the weak one and as if she was a burden, how she doubted her self-worth ... I was rooting for her so much right from the beginning. Because Caldwell does such a good job of this though, I actually think she should have faltered a bit more, or we should have seen it, when she has her first stand-off with Edwin. This may be a seemingly small thing—it probably is—but from previous books, from the intro, and from the rest of the book, we know how her doubts plague her, so their first encounter almost seemed a bit of a stretch, in terms of how well she holds her own. Now, it is believable, because she's doing it all for Stephen, but still.
Now on to Edwin, who was also superb! He is a broken man at the beginning of this book, and how could he not be?! His life has been a hell and now, while this miracle has occurred, he's also still at a complete loss and in some ways more terrified than ever—his shame, and guilt, and grief are now embodied in one little boy whom he thinks he failed and whose hate for him is clear as day every time their eyes meet. Not only is there no rulebook or guidebook on how to deal with this insane situation he finds himself in, but he is also struggling through it all alone, having long been abandoned by most everyone else in the world.
I loved the two of them together and for each other. They were a perfect match in so many ways and I enjoyed so much watching their relationship develop, while also seeing Edwin and Stephen start to form a bond.
BOTTOM LINE. Overall, SUCH a great read! I would recommend it to EVERYONE, though as I mentioned at the beginning, I do think it's helpful if the books are read in order.
(If you see my reading updates, you'll note I had a bit (ha! a bit) of a freakout at ~70%, and that was completely deserved; you'll understand when you read it).
Caldwell's Sinful Brides Series Book 1 — The Rogue's Wager (4.5 stars) Book 2 — The Scoundrel's Honor (4.5 stars) Book 3 — The Lady's Guard (4-4.5 stars) Book 4 — The Heiress's Deception (4 stars)
Other Caldwell Books I've Loved (and Enjoyed Out of Order) The Lady Who Loved Him (The Brethren, #2) — 4.5 stars Tempted by a Lady's Smile (Lords of Honor, #4) — 4 stars To Tempt a Scoundrel (The Heart of a Duke, #15) — 4 stars
And then there are a bunch of 2-star reads ... it's the weirdest thing, but there you are! I either adore her books or hate them. 🤷...more
Then, in this vanishingly small moment in the history of the universe, she took my hand, and held it all the way to the subway.
4.5 stars. What an
Then, in this vanishingly small moment in the history of the universe, she took my hand, and held it all the way to the subway.
4.5 stars. What an enjoyable read! Now I know I read books I adore in only one or two sittings, so I'm a little surprised myself that it took me over a month to finish it, but I think life circumstances are solely to blame.
I highly, HIGHLY recommend this book—and to everyone, not just romance readers. Don Tillman is quite the hero/protagonist/leading character. Don has Asperger's Syndrome and is just the most engaging, interesting, and sweetest guy.
Also: this book LITERALLY made me laugh out loud MULTIPLE times. So much so that at one point, when I was reading it in the plane and having trouble breathing, the guy sitting in the seat next to me asked me if I was okay and what was so funny. I mean, I just couldn't take it, I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard and the more I read, the more I kept laughing, to the point where my stomach hurt. (For those who have read the book: the dancing scene. Yeah. HAHAHAHA!)
It's funny because the title is "The Rosie Project," but the book is really all about Don. Don't get me wrong, Rosie is a strong character, engaging, and I love her for Don and their interactions, but at the beginning of the book she was a bit of a wash for me. She seemed almost like a stereotype, and not a fully fleshed out character. That changed over time though, and I just loved their evolving relationship, and all the highs and lows.
Such a great book! Definitely one of my favorite reads of 2019.
“If I find a partner, which seems increasingly unlikely, I wouldn’t want a sexual relationship with anyone else. But I’m not good at understanding what other people want.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Rosie, for no obvious reason.
I quickly searched my mind for an interesting fact. “Ah . . . the testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex.”
(4.5 stars) [ARC Review] NOTE: updated to 4 stars on 2nd read, because of the same thing I've mentioned when reviewing other Yates books: too much repe(4.5 stars) [ARC Review] NOTE: updated to 4 stars on 2nd read, because of the same thing I've mentioned when reviewing other Yates books: too much repetition and long-windedness about their emotions, verbally and in their heads. Otherwise great!
This book was SOOOO GOOD!!! This is my second Maisey Yates book, the first one being Unbroken Cowboy (my review), the book before this one in the Gold Valley series. I seem to be on a winning streak with her, and I'm loving it!! I've gotten both of these books as ARCs, but I've already gone to her backlist and started buying them up, because she clearly has amazing romance game. Her characters are well-written and defined, intriguing and different, and very compelling. The romance aspects are equally amazing, with terrific chemistry and relationship development. (And now for my long-as-fuck review ... I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself!!! Such a great and emotional read).
Our Heroine, Jamie Dodge (25). I was introduced to Jamie in the previous book, since she was one of Beatrix's (that book's heroine) best friends. I was already intrigued by her from that book, because she seemed very different from other heroines I've read—and she is. That's one of the things I loved best about this book. Don't get me wrong, I adored Gabe, and the dynamic and chemistry between them is killer, but Jamie totally steals the show. She truly is unlike any other heroine I have read, and having read 300, 400, maybe 500 (????) romances, that's definitely saying something.
She's a straight-up tomboy and very, very closed-off emotionally. She is also super blunt, always itching for a fight, doesn't take shit from anyone, knows who she is and is confident in that. HOWEVER, at the same time, there is this supreme vulnerability to her, of which she is just scratching the surface at the beginning. What we got a taste of in Unbroken Cowboy and start to see more of here is her solitude, which has become increasingly apparent to her as her brothers and everyone around her have started to pair off. She is an island unto herself on multiple fronts, and that's one of them. She also has a bit of discomfort with and lack of knowledge about sex. She thinks she knows everything there is to know—she grew up on a farm and around three brothers who were players to varying degrees; to her mind, that means she understands sex and all there is to it. And it's never been something she's really been interested in or cared about. She has her life planned out, knows what she wants, and is focused on becoming a competitor in the barrel racing circuit.
When she starts to work with Gabe Dalton on his ranch, she is shocked when she starts to feel something (physically) because of his presence and proximity. The first few days, she's her normally prickly self, and Gabe decides to take a different approach than he figures most others do—and he might normally—and instead doesn't take the bait and responds calmly to her needling and pushing. It throws her off a bit and she doesn't really know how to handle it. That, combined with this newfound awareness of him, leaves her at a bit of a loss.
And I'm telling you, watching her handle that and how she responds ... OMG so good!! There are some serious laugh-out-loud moments involved, one of my favorites being when she goes with two of her friends to the bar and sees Gabe flirting with a "buckle bunny," with her big hair, tight dress, makeup, sparkly all over, etc.—basically the complete opposite of Jamie, with her sports bras, shapeless jeans, white tank tops and flannel shirts (which leads to my one annoyance about the cover, because although Jamie wears a dress in one scene, that's it). But Jamie, being Jamie, doesn't withdraw into herself when she sees this, or just stew in her feelings, as most heroines would—no, no, even though she's struggling with this new awareness of herself and her vulnerabilities, and doesn't even know WHY she's bothered by the scene (or is completely willing to admit the possibilities of why), she's still hardcore, tough-as-nails Jamie, and so goes over to see what's what. I don't want to say more, but it's definitely the beginning of one of my favorite sections of the book. HA!
Our Hero, Gabe Dalton (33). Gabe is Mr. Player and has been around the block—or in this instance, around the rodeo circuit ;-). He's jaded and bitter and closed-off and somewhat elusive. He's unsatisfied with life, and it becomes clear as the story progresses that there are many root causes for this, including external circumstances beyond his control, and then also his own choices and reactions to these events.
He always wanted to run his father's ranch and his father, who was convinced that the best thing for him was to go to school and get the opportunities he himself had never had, sold all of Gabe's horses out from under him when he was 15 years old, which basically broke his heart and tore him in two. He had always felt at one and at peace working with the horses—basically how Jamie is now—but he felt betrayed by his father's decision and it really scarred him. He ended up going on the rodeo circuit, kind of as an F U to his Dad, and he was supremely successful, so even though it was never all that rewarding or what he had originally wanted to do, he ended up getting sucked into that life.
His father asked him to come back and help him on the ranch, because he's not doing very well health-wise anymore, and so Gabe came back and took some time off the circuit, though his plan is to go back eventually. He decides to use this time off though to setup a type of horse retreat and hires Jamie, who is kind of a horse whisperer, to come work for him and help him set everything up. He is intrigued by her, but having been so put off by his father's behavior, he is very clear with women about only wanting one night stands and not fooling around with anything more serious. So as soon as he starts to note his attraction to Jamie and how intrigued he is by her, he tells himself to put that on lockdown.
Amazing Character Development. Much of Jamie's development centers around her family, and the same applies for Gabe. Both of them have built super protective shells around themselves, a lot of it caused by internal family dynamics. Jamie's mother died two days after her birth and she was left to be raised by her three older brothers and her father; she's always felt a lot of guilt at having, as she sees, taken her mother's life, and made her family swap their mother for her. She missed not having a mother and a female influence in her life, but at the same time she never wanted to be a burden and wanted to fit in with the family, so she tried as much as possible to lay low, be one of the guys, make do, take care of herself—not ask for help or show or admit that she needed any.
When it comes to Gabe, there are hugely complex family dynamics going on there that I won't get too much into, but needless to say, his parents' marriage has kind of been a wreck for much of his life. It has led him to be afraid of being in a relationship himself, afraid of being a negligent, devil-may-care charmer who invariable hurts the people in his life, like his father, and afraid of being on the losing end of love, like his mother. Over the course of the book, a lot of things in his family come to a head and he has to deal with them and figure out how he wants to manage them, how he will or won't let them impact his life, and what the rest of the course of his life will be like. He is kind of at loose ends and trying to find his place still, even though he's 33 years old. He thought he was so clear on why his life has been the way it has and the choices he has made, but it all seems to be coming apart and he's no longer sure about anything.
Watching him and Jamie's development is so lovely and enjoyable, sweet and also heartbreaking. Jamie develops the most, and is the one who pushes Gabe in the end to face his demons and come to the realizations he needs to. For her part, Jamie is so brave and I had so much admiration for her; at the beginning, she's such a prickly, closed-off little thing, and watching her open up, to herself and to everyone around her, and to finding the strength in vulnerability, is SUCH a lovely experience. There are so many sections of this book that I highlighted, and many of them weren't necessarily related to romance or sexy lines or anything like that, but just the beautiful character development that happened within and between them.
Criticism. My only real criticism is about the end section, and there are two points. First, there seems to be a little too much dialogue in the final section. There's a lot of back and forth between Gabe and Jamie and it's a bit repetitive and long-winded. Now, in some instances they were repetitive in the scene, but I think in others it may seem repetitive to the reader because we've already heard these thoughts from the character's perspective, but their romance counterpart hasn't, which I get can be a bit of a bind, but whatever—it's still annoying.
Second, I wish Gabe's lightbulb had come about a bit differently; I get tired of how often in romances the only obstacle is one of the characters being unwilling to admit their love for the other, and then there's some breakthrough moment in the last two pages (or whatever) that then makes them run to the other and pour their heart out. Especially in this instance, I feel like it almost cheated us a bit, because we had SUCH character development from Jamie, and there was the exact same potential with Gabe, and so I wish the end had unfolded a bit differently, in a way that was worthy of how amazing the rest of the book was.
Oh: and it needed an epilogue!!! Such an abrupt ending. What's up with DAT?!
Quotes from Jamie's Perspective.
She felt like she was standing outside her life, looking at herself, and there was a strange and horrible clarity to it that she didn't like at all. — She had always felt like she knew who she was. Certain of her place in the world around her. And now she felt like she was looking inside at something she couldn't understand, her face pressed against the glass. People saw her as sad, apparently. Everyone around her was involved in relationships, and she'd never been in one. She'd never even wanted to be. But right now all of that just made her feel rootless, adrift and very not like herself. Or maybe that wasn't even the problem. Maybe the problem was it made her not want to be herself at all. And it made her feel a whole lot closer to that sad, motherless girl, than she had ever wanted to be. — This was all becoming unbearable. All of this intimacy had been built between them. And it had ... It had changed her. On a fundamental level. It had altered who she was, and how she felt about things. I thad opened up the door to a piece of her she hadn't known was there, and with it, she'd been flooded with all these new desires, hopes and dreams. And now he was pulling away, and it was killing her.
Quotes from Gabe's Perspective.
Years on he'd woken up one morning, his last night out on tour, and realized as he lay in bed with a stranger and a hangover as companions, that he was an apple flourishing right beneath the shade of a tree he had hoped to roll far away from. At this point he had a feeling the roots were too damned deep to do any different. He'd started to wonder if the vision he'd had of becoming Hank [his father] was the wrong one, after all. If he'd just been born him. — She was a revelation. And he wished ... He wished that he could be the man that she seemed to think he was. The way she looked at him ... He didn't know a man that deserved to be looked at like that. — He built a life for himself, made entirely out of materials he didn't give a shit about. And then he wondered why he felt nothing. Nothing in triumph, nothing in failure. He made it that way. Because he never wanted to ... He'd never wanted to be like his mother. Broken and crying and destroyed over caring so much about something that didn't love you back. He was a coward. Jamie was right.
Quotes That Show Why They're Such a Good Fit.
It was still enough out here that it was easier to really see. Quiet enough that you could really hear. When he'd been younger this was where he'd found his peace, and also where he'd done his thinking. Where he'd been his strongest and most vulnerable. He could see it in her now because he knew what this place, what these mountains, did. Broke down your walls. Made you feel small. Not small in a way that made you easy to crush. Small enough to find shelter in these trees. — For some reason, his entire world felt like it was standing on its head and ... He wasn't even all that pissed off about it. Not like he should be. Because Jamie was interesting. She had a passion about her, and it had touched something inside him he hadn't accessed in years. And she'd gone and made him feel. Made him feel things about the ranch, the horses, about the life he'd left all those years before. And then she'd done this. Walked up and broken into his routine.
*This review is of an ARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Some changes and/or edits may be made to the final published version....more
Whenever he was with her, it became all about her. What she did to him. What he would like to do to her. Everything else seemed to drop away. That
Whenever he was with her, it became all about her. What she did to him. What he would like to do to her. Everything else seemed to drop away. That was dangerous.
4.5 stars I loved this book—and this entire series! I've been reading them all out of order, so this is the 2nd book in a 5-book series, but it's the 4th one I've read thus far. (They don't need to be read in order, though some connect more than others; this one probably matters the least).
I was very, very wary going in honestly. I have a low TSTL heroine threshold and after reading a few reviews, I was getting that strong vibe—and then several reviews starting using the term, so yeah ... I bought it solely on the fact that I had loved the other 3 books I had read in the series (and was coming off of a high from one of them). All to say, I'm very glad that I did go ahead and purchase it, so if you're wary for that reason, maybe don't be? ... I say maybe, because obviously everyone has a different threshold, but also I wonder if the fact that I was so afraid of that made it so that the reality was by default not that bad.
He might be alive and breathing, but he had died a long time ago. He was nothing but a walking ghost now. A ghost with nothing to lose.
People have gone on and on about Reid, and oh lord do I understand why. WHAT a delicious hero!! You don't realize unless you've read Book 1 how much of a bad, cold, hardened guy he is, because you get to see the good guy side of him so quickly (not a criticism). The whole setup is shit—not for the reader, I mean for Reid. He escapes from prison, and is obviously trying to stay on the DL ... and walks right into house where the President's kidnapped daughter is being kept. Yeah. Not ideal! He escaped for one reason and one reason alone though, and expects to return to prison after that.
The fact that he now has to take care of Grace and stop her from being raped or killed complicates the issue, but there is no point at which he thinks he has any other choice. He is not that guy, he will never be that guy, and even before something starts to develop between them, you know he will go all out to stop something from happening to her. Because he's a good guy! It pits him against his brother, which is a complicated dynamic and probably the saddest part of this story.
A part of her wanted to shatter the proper and controlled veneer of her life. To finally be touched. For someone to see her and peel back all the layers and tap into something that was real. To uncover that part of her that was locked away, neglected. Never felt. Never touched. Never seen.
I liked Grace, what can I say?! I thought her reactions to the situations were legitimate; she acts scared when she should be scared (and she should be scared as fuck because the guys who took are not good guys, in any way, shape, or form); she tries to get away when she should try to get away; she fights back when she should fight back; etc.
And regarding one of the points brought up in other reviews, I think that she does let her guard down appropriately with Reid. Others have written that she keeps fighting him when she shouldn't, but I didn't read it that way and I didn't think she was annoying in her behavior. I also didn't think it swung to the other end of things, where she all of a sudden falls for her kind-of-captor and they have sex like rabbits. It was a perfect balance in my opinion. She tags him as potentially good guy when he offers to protect her for the night and doesn't take advantage of her; when he won't let her go again, she reacts angrily (as she should) and tries to get away (as she should). And the back and forth continues; it is definitely a situation of two steps forward, one step back, but always for a reason, not to an annoying degree, and it all made sense to me.
To note: I hate insta-lust stories, but this wasn't that, so if those are also a turnoff for you, don't be scared away, this book is great!
I loved when they finally got into the groove of things and firmly established they were in each other's corner and something was happening; it was all so sweet, and romantic, and bittersweet, and tragic, and everything that is good and wonderful and makes for a good romance story.
“Escaping is only going to make me mad. Make me catch you and pin you down. And trust me, you don’t want me to do that again. Every time I pin you down I have to fight the urge to fuck you.”
Might as well be honest. Maybe that would scare her into behaving.
Devil's Rock Series Book 1.All Chained Up (4 stars) Book 2.Hell Breaks Loose (4.5 stars) Book 3.Fury on Fire (3.5 stars) Book 4.Beautiful Lawman (4 stars) Book 5.Beautiful Sinner (4 stars)...more
4.5 stars Highly recommend; very interesting and compelling, so vital for our country right now, and really a must-read for every American. And most im4.5 stars Highly recommend; very interesting and compelling, so vital for our country right now, and really a must-read for every American. And most immediately, for every single elected GOP Congressman and Congresswoman. As in, IMMEDIATELY.
Something that I really appreciated was that the authors end the book by giving suggestions as to what can be done to address the situation we find ourselves in right now, at this critical time in our country.
4.5 stars SUCH a wonderful book! I'm grinning as I write this review. Asa Makepeace—wowzers. I mean, we didn't get started off on the right foot—he is 4.5 stars SUCH a wonderful book! I'm grinning as I write this review. Asa Makepeace—wowzers. I mean, we didn't get started off on the right foot—he is a complete asshole the first time he meets Eve and his attempts to charm her just to get what he wants are a huge turnoff (though thankfully, Eve sees right through him). But Lubnaa, one of my romance reading Instagram buddies, assured me that he makes up for it and she was right. He has firmly made it onto my Favorite Heroes GR bookshelf.
His matching with Eve is also absolutely perfect. One would think not—she's reserved, stiff, afraid of men, and Asa is the embodiment of masculinity. He's big, he's loud, he's coarse, he's kind of violent, how in hell are they a match? But they are, and they are a perfect because of the influence they have on one another. He helps bring out her strength and in an odd way, she is comforted by his force and vitality; she's attracted to it, as someone who has lived in the shadows in a self-imposed cage for so long. He makes her want to stretch her limits and experience that which she always assumed was unavailable to her.
For his part, Asa finds himself under her spell—completely unexpectedly. He's drawn to the juxtaposition of her and how different she is from him; he sees her strength and her vulnerability, and is drawn to what he sees as the possibility of her—though that's not really the right term, because it's there all the while within her, but he wants to see it unleashed. Wants to see her unleashed.
Lubnaa told me that Asa is a dirty talker, and I wasn't sure whether that meant his coarseness or in bed, but we're gifted with both, which I'm a sucker for lololol ;-). He really is a force to be reckoned with, and his passion for the theater and Harte's Folly is palpable. One can only imagine what it would be like to be the person on the receiving end of such passion and focus ... and Eve is drawn to that possibility.
In case people want to know more details about Eve's trauma: (view spoiler)[she wasn't raped, but when she was younger she was forced to participate in a "revelry" of the Lords of Chaos, who appear over the next several books. Her father was a member and brought her to them one of the years it was held at his house. She witnessed children being chased by dogs (herself included) and being torn apart by them when caught. She also ended up being cornered by one of the Lords and assaulted, but not fully raped. (hide spoiler)]
I loved the scene where we get to revisit with the Makepeace family, since so many of their members have been stars of their romance in this series. Overall, the book is just fantastic, and should be read by all historical romance readers. This is one of my favorite romance series of all-time, so I do recommend that you read the other books as well. Furthermore, because there are reappearances, it will help and make it more enjoyable to have read them first. Such a great read!...more
Juliana Philippa
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