Series: Scandal Sheet Survivors, #2
Traits & Tropes: marriage of convenience; antihero; spinster heroine; suspense
Publication Date: 12.20.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, Autumn, 1830
Heat Level: 4
Rating: 5 stars
Thanks to her brother’s recklessness, Miss Mina Stanford is left with no choice but to visit the notorious Devon Masters in the dead of night and beg him not to fight a duel the next morning with her brother. The difficult and demeaning task is made even more challenging still when the butler assumes she must be a Cyprian and shows her up to the man’s private chamber.
But this chance meeting changes both Mina’s and Devon’s lives forever when he is arrested for her brother’s murder and she is the only one who can account for his innocence, ruining her reputation to save a man from wrongful punishment.
This sort of employment of the marriage of convenience trope is like catnip to me. Mina and Devon meet because he’s the only one she can go to in order to beg for mercy for her brother, but when her brother turns up murdered, Mina winds up being the one who can save Devon from immediate condemnation by an incompetent inspector. I loved the fact that Mina and Devon were together and married early on in the book and the rest of the time they were working together to solve the mystery of her brother’s murder. We got cameos from the couples of previous books, and I loved that too. The mystery here was very elaborate and a bit sinister and I loved how it wrapped up, and especially how Devon and Mina’s relationship strengthened each day they spent together. I loved that he wanted to create intimacy between them even though he was rather cynical. They established an open, honest communication between them from the start and I loved that so much. It made their relationship feel very strong very quickly and I think this may be the steamiest book I’ve read by this author yet (I’m very much here for that if you can’t tell). This one worked very well for me and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5148281055
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/4248320422
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