Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥+
Humor: A bit
Perspective: third person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: Very soon in, about 1%
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, 5 months later
Format: read an e-book version through kindle unlimited
Why I chose this book: I recently finished book 2, Rebel Love, and decided to dive into this story right away.
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
It’s probably best in order, because so many of the characters are overlapping...but the romance itself stands alone.

Basic plot:
Heath is looking for a bride and can’t seem to keep his hands off Tia.

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian – 1882
- house party
- widow heroine
- compromised heroine
- Duke hero
- artist hero
- instalust
- he’ll carry you when you injure your foot
- some other woman/other man elements
- he will, ahem, warm you in the abandoned cabin when you’re cold
- higher steam – 7 full scenes plus some kisses

Ages:
- heroine is 25, didn’t see hero mentioned

First line:
If there was one thing in the world that Tia, Lady Stokey, adored, it was parties.

My thoughts:
I am really struggling with this series and I’m a bit sad. The first book just had a bunch of stuff I personally get annoyed with. The second book I enjoyed the first half, but the second half again went to a bunch of stuff I didn’t love. This one...I guess it just didn’t have much tension for me which is what I live for in romance and I ended up not really liking either main character much, so that really dwindled my enjoyment.

I think if you’re looking for a fast faced, steamy read with an angsty ending (with some elements of other man and other woman woven in) then this will work great for you!

Some specific details about why this didn’t work for me -

Struggle summary – I was bored. There’s major instalust here and they fall into sex pretty fast. They keep doing it repeatedly, get caught and forced into marriage. But then, the hero all of sudden can’t be ‘sniffing around her skirts’ and spending so much time with her so he’s rather cold to her. Why? He was up her butt the entire house party but now that they are married he can’t be? Didn’t make sense to me. Then the animosity grew between them as he kept himself closed off from her and she kept pushing boundaries and not listening to his wishes. I ended up not liking either of them. I felt like the hero was mean for no reason and the heroine didn’t respect the hero and it was hurtful and frustrating to read. 

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 4
Average rating:
Favorite book: Her Errant Earl

Quotes

“Ah ha,” she called out in delight. “I’ve found you now, you little minx.”
But her moment of triumph was terribly abridged, for the noise-making culprit, seated on a bench before her, was not Miss Whitney. Nor, in fact, was it even a female. Quite the opposite.
Dear heavens. Eyes the same wistful color as a summer sky met hers, stealing her breath. She stopped, her heart thumping as madly as a runaway stallion’s hooves. The man staring back at her, an open book in his large hands, a golden brow raised, was decidedly as far as one could get from the petite, Virginia-born Miss Whitney.
“I daresay I’ve been called a great number of things in my life, but never yet a little minx,” drawled the Duke of Devonshire as he stood and bowed to her.
---
“I’m sure I shall regret this in the morning, but I’m in the mood to be wicked tonight.”
It was all he needed to hear. He grabbed her hand in his before she could change her mind. “Let’s be wicked together.”

 

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- brief mention of a somewhat unpleasant marriage
- minor alcohol usage
- the hero does tie the heroine to the bed (and fucks her) but then leaves her tied for like an hour, alone
- death of a fiance remembered

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:

Safe sex: 

  No 

How’s the consent? 

  It’s good 

Pregnancy/children in story? 

  There is a child side character that’s a teenager (the heroine is kind of her companion – the girl is the daughter of a friend) and the heroine gets pregnant at the end of the story 

7% - kisses
16% - 🔥 kisses that eventually lead to bj for him (incomplete), oral for her, missionary
”Open your legs for me,” he said, part command, part request. It was his turn to ply sensual torture, and he’d never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted to make Tia come on his tongue.

26% - kiss
34% - 🔥 kisses, missionary in the abandoned cabin

“Tia.” His voice was low, seductive and rough, at once whiskey and silk to her senses.
He was warning her, she knew. If she pushed him one inch more, he’d fall off the ledge and take her with him. “Heath,” she returned, enjoying his name on her tongue. “I don’t think I want you to be noble just now.”

42% - kiss
47% - 🔥 kisses, missionary

“Good. I want you on fire for me, darling. Naked and wet and hungry.” Dear, sweet God. The things he did to her. He hadn’t even kissed her mouth yet, for heaven’s sake, and she was already quivering, a wanton woman in his arms.

63% - 🔥 he ties her to the bed, fingering for her, missionary

He caught her with his teeth, lightly tugging. “At last, silence,” he said against her skin. “It would seem I’ve discovered the way to keep you quiet.”
He sank a finger inside her to the hilt.

69% - 🔥 blow job (incomplete), missionary

“I thought you were determined to finish painting,” she said, and though her tone was mild, her voice was breathless.
It would seem he wasn’t the only one affected. He caught her hand and pressed it to the demanding ridge of his cock. “Does it feel as if I want to paint at the moment?”
Her eyes darkened, her fingers working on the fastenings of his trousers. “No.”

75% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, missionary
She stroked him, knowing by now just what he liked.
“Damn it, woman.” He shucked his trousers, divested her of her chemise and swept her into his arms before carrying her to the bed dominating the far side of the room.
88% - 🔥 kisses, sex against the wall
”I would never ask that of you, Heath. I’m yours.” She caressed her jaw, eager to touch him now that he was back in her life. The last few days had been interminable. She had missed him so very much.
He crushed her against him, his mouth swooping perilously near to hers. “Say it again.”