Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋 (This one really grabbed me emotionally in the latter half)
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡ (very slow burn, but I could have used a bit more burn...)
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋 (I really enjoy Long’s steamy scenes – good mix of emotions and explicitness)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: third person from both hero and heroine (there might have been a brief section of side characters POV)
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: Very soon in, chapter 1
Cliffhanger: This ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes
Format: listened to the audiobook through my library (Hoopla)
Why I chose this book: I have slowly been making my way through the Pennyroyal Green series! Books 5 and 6 really solidified my love of Long’s writing and eventually want to read all her work.

Should I read in order?
It’s not totally necessary, but there’s character overlap and nuances within the series that build on each other. So ideally in order, but the romance itself will stand alone.

Basic plot:
Evie moves to a manor house to escape the rumors and judgment from London society

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency
- English countryside setting
- widow heroine
- vicar hero
- celibate hero
- Irish heroine
- slowwwww burn – no action until after 80%
- lower steam – 2 full scenes towards the end

Ages:
- didn’t catch them

First line: (taken from audio)
She was confident no one would ever expect to find her in a church.

My thoughts:
So, I REALLY loved books 5 and 6 of this series, and this book just didn’t quite match my love. I did like it though!

I love the idea of the vicar and the former courtesan. And Long’s writing shone through with her endearing side characters, humor, and emotional depth created in the relationship. This one took me awhile to get into though. I found this one really, really slow, and ultimately I just wanted a bit more from it by the end. But the second half was way more emotional and I did fall in love with them. I will say though in this one I loved the heroine more than the hero. I think I wanted him to crumble more for Evie than he did haha.

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 8
Average rating: 4.25 stars
Favorite book: What I Did for a Duke

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

- side character mentions the loss of a child
- there are some scenes of bullying of the heroine (because she was a ‘mistress’)
- domestic violence and neglect remembered
- domestic violence on page (side characters)
- very brief mention of previously smoking
Author content warnings? None given

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

 
Safe sex: 

  No 

 
Hows the consent? 

  It’s good 

 
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!) 

  There are some scenes with children as side characters – playing with children, rocking a baby, etc. but no pregnancy 

 
65% - kiss
82% - 🔥her on top
93% - 🔥oral for her, sex, bj