Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥+
Humor: A bit
Perspective: Third person from the hero and heroine (lots from the hero!)
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: Yes, 2 weeks later

Should I read in order?
Sure! There’s some page time with previous characters and the series is really fun. You can start the series with a newsletter freebie with Roslynn’s story.

Basic plot:
Althea is looking for investors to further her apothecary business and meets Evan, who is interested in more than a business arrangement.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency (1817)
- apothecary owner heroine
- naughty house party
- truth or dare
- hero pursues
- LGBT positive

pansexual (or bisexual?) hero 

- bargain 

If the Evan can’t bring Althea to orgasm, he’ll give her business advice and an interest free loan – she declines the bet but it does come into play again through the story, altered a bit 

- masquerade
- high steam with some light kink elements – 8 full scenes along with 3 shorter ones I didn’t count and a hot partial scene. Kink includes 

voyuerism, exhibitionism, light spanking, light bondage 

Ages:
- Hero is 28, I couldn’t figure out the heroine but I think she’s a similar age

First line:
Lady Althea Egerton fidgeted her hands in her garnet-hued skirts as she hovered near the veranda doors of the crowded ballroom.

My thoughts:
Another amazingly fun and sexy romp from Sims! I think each book in the series has gotten better and I’m so excited to see what else Sim’s comes out with.

I really enjoy ‘sexual awakening’ themes and I appreciated Althea’s exploration and finding what she likes and bedroom confidence. I think Sim’s really stepped up the emotional pull for me in this one – her sexy scenes had my heart aching and I felt the angst and tension more in this one than the previous books.

There was a lot of fun scenes in this book – naughty house parties, masquerades, strip whist...and an adorable truth or dare aspect that came into play throughout the book and always made me smile. When the whispered “I dare you” came out, my heart pitter-pattered faster.

But we also get some great depth with these two. Althea owns an apothecary and Evan is a businessman at heart who enjoys helping women-owned businesses reach their dream potential. I enjoyed Evan’s vulnerability and worry for just being used for his business savvy and his longing to be seen as a person. This does lead to some scenes of him feeling a bit sorry himself that had me giving him the side eye in some aspects, though. I think he could have been a touch more understanding of Althea’s hesitation in regards to sex and a relationship, but in his defense Althea also never really opened up to him in detail about. I think that was one thing I had wished – I was expecting a heart to heart where Althea is open about her fears due to her past relationship and her inexperience of embracing openly enjoying sex and then Evan using all his wiles to take down her defenses. We as a reader know Althea’s fears though, and their relationship does progress to give her more confidence and fun in the bedroom :)

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:

“I loved my husband.”
“And I love my friends. I’m talking about orgasms, not feelings.”

---
Their first meeting after he goes down on her at her apothecary

Turning to Althea, he ignored Beth’s intrusive stare and leaned in to whisper in the hope that Beth would not catch his words, “Althea. I did not wash my hand or face for a full day. I look forward to our next visit.”
Althea flushed but licked her lips and left them parted.
His brushed hers, the barest of rubs. Once, twice. A touch of his tongue to her lower lip, and then he pulled back.
“I dare you to think of me.”

---
the way he steals her underwear…

“Right then, let’s make sure you are warm for the walk back to the guesthouse, as you’ll not be wearing drawers.” He folded her undergarment as small as possible and stuffed them into his breast pocket, pouffing them out to look like a dandy’s handkerchief and smiling in anticipation.
 

Content warnings:

- Heroine grew up controlled by religion due to her father and her husband had a similar vibe so openly enjoying sex for pleasure was frowned upon in her marriage
- Hero’s mother is experiencing dementia/Alzheimer’s symptoms

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
My pages might be off because sometimes I was looking at the actual page number of the book and sometimes I was checking the page number of the document, which was longer (oops – should still give you an idea of what to expect!)
Safe sex? (view spoiler)
Pg 60 – Hero masturbation (fairly short)
PG 83 – 🔥 a naughty truth or dare game leads to kisses, breast play, oral for her
Pg 91 – heroine masturbation (fairly short)
Pg 114 – kiss
Pg 122 – 🔥 voyeurism – Evan and Althea look through peephole rooms and watch a man standing, taking a woman on the bed, fingering for heroine
Pg 128 – hero masturbation (short)
Pg 134 – 🔥 Evan puts Althea on her work table in the back room, breast play, oral/fingering for her then hero masturbates for the heroine
Pg 169 – kisses, hero dips his fingers in whisky and plays orally with her (no o)
Pg 176 – 🔥touches and exploration, blow job (incomplete), her on top (with a condom)
Pg 181 - some brief mentions of nights spent together
Pg 185 – 🔥 spanking (testing it out for pleasure), doggy style (with a condom)
Pg 193 – 🔥 kisses, blow job (complete), followed by fingering for her
Pg 239 - 🔥 in a theater box while they watch others fondle each other, fingering for her – slight pressure of being caught by theater server, then during the next act she gives him a blow job (complete)
Pg 244 – remembrances of time spent together, experimenting with flogging/spanking
Pg 253 - 🔥 Althea and Evan are at another house party and this time watch a bondage experience – they go to a room, light spanking, mirror play,
Total pages 320