Series: Covent Garden Cubs, #3
Traits & Tropes: heroine in danger; second chance; investigator hero; forced marriage; titled hero; second son
Publication Date: 03.01.16
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, England
Heat Level: 4
Rating: 3.5/5
Narration Rating: 4/5
When hired by the Duke of Lennox to find his missing daughter, investigator Sir Brook Derring has no intention of becoming bogged down with the lady again. He’ll find her, return her to her family, and have nothing further to do with any of them. He’s used to dealing with hardened criminals so he should be able to handle seeing his first love again, despite how wholly she broke his heart.
Lady Lillian-Anne has always tried to be the epitome of a society lady, striving to meet her father’s exacting standards of what a duke’s daughter should be. This means she has grown up sheltered and spoiled, more interested in attaining popularity and a cadre of suitors than in considering the feelings of others. Her pampered world is thrown into chaos when she is kidnapped, but it turns out to be a potential fresh start for her. Thrown back into Brook’s world, she must work with him to keep herself safe, which means finding a way to work past the old hurts the have festered between them.
I have so many mixed feelings on this one. This is one of my absolute favorite authors and I was really intrigued by this premise and expecting to love it, but I just didn’t. Most of my frustration stemmed from our heroine, Lila. As promised, she was very spoiled and self-centered, though no longer the malicious mean girl she’d been in her younger days. Still, the fact that she so utterly shattered Brook and changed so much about him with her rejection, a rejection she didn’t even have a recollection of, made it difficult to like her, despite how much she’d changed. She was very clueless, and it took a while for her to care how she was hurting Brook. It was clear that she had done some growing up, but not enough and she was still quite out of touch with reality. I’d have liked to see her display her growing maturity a bit more, but it took her rather a long time to make much of a change despite being aware of how poorly she treated Brook. It was nice to see the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, with her falling for a mostly indifferent (or trying to be indifferent) Brook. He certainly deserved that sort of devotion and she needed to see the consequences of her previous bad behavior. Sure, she already knew how it had affected her, leaving her lonely and friendless, but I think it was also good for her to see how she had hurt others as well, so that aspect of character development I did enjoy. I only wished she’d been a bit more consistent in her changes instead of wavering back and forth so much between immature and snobbish and reasonable and nursing unrequited love for Brook, though I chalked this malleability up to her frustration at Brook’s inability to return her feelings and it rather seemed fitting that she should have to suffer that for a while, as he had.
These two had plenty of banter as they tried to work through their new reality of being forced to be a couple. I enjoyed their antics and found them humorous, though they didn’t exactly reflect Lila in the best light either. I also never really felt much of the chemistry or tension I expected for these scenes to produce, so their intimacy sometimes seemed out of place (not that I ever mind a good steamy scene.) For his part, Brook wasn’t exactly the nicest hero but given Lila’s previous treatment of him, his resentment of her did make a lot of sense, and it made for a second chance, hate to love, enemies to lovers sort of twist that I don’t think I’ve read before, so I’m glad I tried it out.
The pace picked up towards the end and I was really starting to enjoy the plotting by then, but after that the ending felt a bit rushed and I didn’t see as much contrition from Lila nor as much romance between Lila and Brook as I wanted. The ending was still satisfying overall, but that third act glitch undermined a lot of Lila’s character development for me, and I don’t think it was meant to. Overall, I really liked this setup and premise, but I was not a fan of the heroine and the hero wasn't compelling enough to me to make up for her.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2465009423
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1665825252
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