Overall: 3.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖 (I was very interested in the first half! But I did hit a bit of a wall and set it down for a bit.)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥 I settled at a 2 flame – there’s a plethora of open door scenes, but none are super long or developed or detailed.
Humor: A touch
Perspective: Third perspective from hero and heroine (and a bit from the hero’s housekeeper and also James Malvern, the hero’s brother)
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slow to medium
When mains are first on page together: Almost immediately (4% of the book, like pg 2 of the story??)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after for the mains
Epilogue: Yes (not sure exactly how far in the future as quite a bit of time elapsed during the story, but I’d guess a year or so)
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from the author in e-book form

Should I read in order?
There is a novella (To Woo a Maid) that might give more character background but isn’t totally necessary to read. I want to say it comes after this novel though as Nellie is single in this book? I will have to read it and see where it fits best!

Basic plot:
Anne and Sedrich are both intrigued by each other, but neither is at liberty to marry where their hearts lead...

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian time period - 1880
- class difference – hero is an Earl and heroine is the daughter of a bastard and a chambermaid
- artist heroine
- interesting author notes
- lower steam – there are a variety of scenes but the length of the scenes is on the short side

Ages:
- Heroine is 21, hero is 30

First line:
He’d escaped at last, seeking refuge on the blissfully empty terrace outside, looking for a dark corner to hide and light a smoke in peace.

My thoughts:
Remillard brings a new voice to the HR world and I found her writing lovely and her characters unique!

I was really invested in the first half of this novel. I really loved how Malcolm and Anne circled each other, almost connecting, a number of times before they were finally able to come together. I loved how they both had some German background. And I was really falling for Malcolm in the first half of this novel. It had some big rescue plot vibes and I was very into that.

But the latter half I will admit lost me a bit. I did struggle with the various POVs going on in the book. I tend to really prefer just the mains, and don’t like getting the villains POV unless it’s truly necessary. But we also got Nellie’s POV and I started to get frustrated with being pulled all over.

I thought the hero was unnecessarily cruel on a few occasions and when he did try to apologize, the heroine, instead of making him crawl and beg, stopped him and told him it was okay and excused his actions which was really frustrating to me. There is another apology scene towards the end that placated me a bit, but I still left with some doubt in the hero’s long term good behavior…

So overall I had a few things that didn’t work for me in this novel, but I really loved Remillard’s writing and did grab her novella that is also out (To Woo a Maid) and am eager to give that a try at some point too. I think those that really like an involved villain plot mixing with their mains happiness would enjoy this novel.

Endearments

The hero calls the heroine ‘schatz’ which means ‘darling’ 

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

- smoking
- toxic and verbally abusive guardian for the heroine, physical abuse threats
- heroine is caned for punishment by her uncle
- possible feelings of infidelity – the hero gets drunk and lets a woman attend to him at a brothel and it seems like he would have moved forward sexually if she didn’t speak and take him out of his daze (no physical cheating)
- scene of assault – the hero’s brother grabs the heroine while shes in the bath, holding her neck and threatens her
- sex shaming – heroine is shamed for trying to give the hero a bj and he implies she’s a loose woman
- forced vaginal exam given by the villains to see if Anne is still a virgin

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes: I settled at a 2 flame – there’s a plethora of open door scenes, but none are super long or developed or detailed.

 
Safe sex: 

No, they are married 

 
Hows the consent? 

  It’s good/implied 

 
42% - cock touches that I think leads to him coming?? It was quite short and vague so I’m assuming here.
45% - kisses, touches, hand job (it’s quite short)
49% - mention of past pleasuring
62% - oral for her (it’s more of an assumption, it’s quite light) followed by an implied bj
81% - missionary
93% - a few sentences of her on top