Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 (These scenes were a bit light compared to her later work)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A touch
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine (and a brief section from the heroine’s mother)
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 2%
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, a few months later?
Format: read an e-book version through kindle unlimited
Why I chose this book: It was our book of the month in Upturned Petticoats and Undone Cravats group on FB – I read book 1 awhile ago because I wanted to start chronologically with Scott’s work so I was looking to continue the series!
Mains: This a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This might be all right out of order, but the events of book 1 happen concurrently in the first part of the book and then the mains of book 1 do have a decent amount of page time so I think it’s best in order!

Basic plot:
Lady Bella wants Mr Whitney, but her mother demands no less than a coronet….

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian – 1880
- bespectacled, book loving heroine
- brother’s best friend
- house party
- ex-soldier hero
- English heroine / American hero – he’s from Virginia
- longing – from both!
- hero has dimples
- age gap – he’s older by 15 years
- overcoming parental objection
- medium steam – 3ish full scenes. They are explicit enough but definitely light in language compared to her later works

Ages:
- heroine is 21, hero is around 36

First line:
Maman wanted to marry her off.

My thoughts:
So – I LOVED the first half of this book. I thought it was so cute and I am a fool for any kind of longing that goes unrewarded...it’s not really unrequited since it’s on both sides haha. And I loved so many scenes, and found so many quotes I adored…

But then about halfway through, it switched and I just didn’t like it anymore. It went to tropes I really dislike. They had a separation. A lack of communication. (view spoiler) And I was just annoyed with both of these mains. It didn’t get better for me and eventually I just wanted it over with.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of book 1 for similar reasons. But I plan on continuing this series. Eventually I want to read all of Scotts work – I read one from her later series and really loved it so I get these earlier novels might not work for me. I do think they will work for most people though. The writing is fine – it’s more the busier plot that got to me and some tropes I just don’t love….

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 3
Average rating: 3.67
Favorite book: Her Errant Earl

Endearments

The hero calls the heroine ‘darling’. 

Quotes

She attempted a smile she could not quite feel. “You have been a boon, truly.”
“You would call your own mother a baboon? Dear Lord, how am I to find a husband for an uncouth girl such as this?”
Her mother addressed the ceiling of the carriage as if she were having a direct audience with the Lord Himself.
Bella would dearly have liked to offer some choice words of her own on the matter, but she wisely refrained. Instead, she counted to five in her head, took a supporting breath, and attempted to correct the dowager. “Maman, I said you’ve been a boon, not a baboon.”
---
She was a parsnip in reverse, she’d decided some time ago. Thick skin on the inside, sweet and soft on the outside. She preferred it that way, for then, everyone underestimated her.
---
“Am I in danger?”
Her fingers wandered from his jaw to his mouth, so manly yet firm. His breath was warm as it fanned against her skin. His eyes fastened upon hers. “Yes,” he said simply, and then she was in his arms.
---
“Think nothing of it,” she repeated his careless words, her tone grown cool. “You say it as though we were discussing nothing more than a speck of dust on the family silver. You kissed me, held me in your arms. Surely it is of more consequence to you than that.”
His eyes flashed with dark emotion. For a moment, his gentleman’s mask slipped to reveal passion hidden beneath his imperturbable facade.
---
Bella couldn’t help but notice how broad and muscular his chest was, dappled with whorls of blond hair. His stomach was taut as a drum. Her mouth went dry. He’d been stripped of his gentleman’s airs. He seemed savage, filled with raw emotion. An answering heat burst into flame inside her. She rather liked the stranger in his place who looked at her as if he wanted to devour her.
A feral grin curved his lips. “It isn’t a friend I’m in need of, Bella,”
She knew she should not ask, but she had never been very good at doing as she ought. “What is it you need?”
He stopped inches from her. “You have by the time I count to fifteen to get out.” Even as he spoke the words, he reached out to caress her waist with a possessiveness he’d never before shown.
Without her corset’s rigid barrier, she could feel his large hands splaying over her, the power and heat so barely contained. Bella took a deep breath and cupped his face. “I won’t leave you,” she vowed.
“One,” he muttered, already working at the double line of buttons on her bodice. “Two.”
Her body was on fire with longing. She wanted very much to kiss him, to comfort him. To make him whole. “Jesse,” she whispered, emboldened enough by the intimacy of the setting to use his given name. “You needn’t exercise your knowledge of arithmetic on my behalf.”
“Fifteen,” he skipped ahead.
---
A warm sensation of victory stirred within her. “You want me?”
He caught her hand in his and pressed it between them, allowing her to feel the ridge of his cock. She gasped, stunned that he would be so bold with a ballroom of guests not far away but nonetheless eager.
 

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

- heroine slaps the hero
- hero has some PTSD about the war
- hero is recovering from a hurtful relationship 15 years ago – she betrayed him and it resulted in him being shot
- hero had the existence of his child kept from him for 15 years
- illness and death on page
- the heroine kisses someone else after she’s been with the hero (its consensual...she thinks she was abandoned)
- pregnancy happens on page
- heroine has a miscarriage – the event happens off page, but the aftermath is on page and her grief
- there is a brief mention of the possibility of an abortion
Author content warnings? Didn’t see any

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

Safe sex: 

  Nope 

How’s the consent? 

  It’s good 

Pregnancy/children in story? 

  Yes. The heroine falls pregnant in the story, but loses the baby (the aftermath is on page) and the hero discovers he has a child from a prior relationship and becomes her guardian about ½ way through the book 

7% - kiss
11% - kiss
20% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her
She shivered, aroused to be on display to him, to watch his eyes worship her. And then he buried his face between her legs.

30% - kisses
31% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, missionary

“Hush, darling,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the side of her breast. He looked up at her and grinned, his dimple flashing for a moment. “You must be as quiet as you can or else we’ll have the dowager storming in to rescue you from this horrid American.”

56% - kiss with the heroine and another man
71% - kisses
78% - kisses
81% - 🔥 handy to bj (incomplete), missionary
”Do I meet with your approval?” she asked innocently.
“Christ yes,” he said on a groan, rising to his feet and surging toward her.
She stopped him with a staying hand on his chest. “No you don’t. It’s my turn now.”