Series: Hell's Belles, #2
Traits & Tropes: opposites attract; class difference; road trip; only one bed; forced proximity; titled hero; age gap; enemies to lovers; hurt/comfort; praise
Publication Date: 08.23.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; London, England, 1834
Heat Level: 3
Rating: 3/5
I have some very mixed feelings about this book. I actually really enjoyed the latter third or so, but the first half or two-thirds had me furious and annoyed. I had a similar struggle with the first book, but Adelaide was almost worse in a way and I had some issues with their girl gang. This group is all about women being independent and making their own decisions, so I was flummoxed by their audacity in thinking they had the right to make decisions for Helene. Their steadfast belief that they can protect Helene better than a powerful duke and said duke’s her, the man who she loves, is ludicrous. They would have done much better, and made for a more enjoyable read, if they had worked as a team with Henry and his brother from the outset, but no. This group’s insistence on deciding what was best for Helene and how best to keep her safe without consulting her just smacked of shortsighted hypocrisy.
Adelaide herself was not better, criticizing Henry for being arrogant, when she definitely seemed to have much more of that trait than he did. Given how many times Adelaide betrayed Henry’s trust in the first few chapters alone I was very skeptical that they’d ever come to be in a believable, functional relationship. Now, to give this book its due, that is exactly what happened. Adelaide finally got over herself a bit as she gave Henry a chance to show her who he really was, and then their relationship began to make more sense. Nonetheless, this didn’t happen without Henry being hurt unnecessarily and thrown into dangerous situations without all the facts, simply because Adelaide was afraid to trust him because of her own issues and not anything he’d actually done.
Henry was a likable hero, a caring brother and a willing partner to Adelaide, also very good at praise, but that’s about all he is. His character got the short stick when it came to actual development and it just felt like he was written as a good man but grudgingly, like it is something bad to admit that there are good men out there. I’m still not entirely sure Adelaide deserved Henry or appreciated him properly, but she was at least making strides in that direction. Her treatment of him was still grossly unfair, however, and that went on a bit long for this to have a truly romantic feel to me, though I did appreciate the hurt/comfort scene, I think perhaps because this was the point where we finally got some emotion. I think my main complaint with this book is that the romance was lacking just because I never really understood exactly what Henry saw in Adelaide beyond his admiration of her skills, simply because I don’t think she let him see much of anything else. I definitely believed that the chases and forced proximity would lead to the romance, but then the romance itself received a light treatment. Henry was still getting shafted in the end, forced to make his confession of feelings in front of all the other Belles, who for some reason still felt the need to protect Adelaide from him. If anything, he needed protection from her, and they needed to go on somewhere and let him at leave have some privacy with his love.
I liked the concept of this elaborate network of women (and some men) working to bring justice to those who may not otherwise get what’s coming to them. Unfortunately, the execution was a bit off and the group just comes off as a pack of insufferably arrogant know-it-alls. There’s a distinct lack of character development, especially for the male characters and that doesn’t make me want to fight the patriarchy, it makes me wonder why we’re alienating lots of potential allies by painting all men with the same brush as the ones we know to be bad men. I was also not thrilled by the insinuation that women who have a connection to the men who are truly bad must somehow atone for it themselves. What? No.
The male characters have been watered down to supporters of the female characters’ feminist ideals and goals and providers of pleasure to said females and that’s basically it. The female characters’ are similarly flat with their characterizations consisting of a loose background and their over the top goals within this secret society. None of them feel like they have any true substance. The incessant condescension to all the male characters in this book was appalling. We wouldn’t stand for the hero talking down to the heroine this way in a romance book, but it’s perfectly fine for Adelaide to mock Henry’s fighting skills despite his having shown multiple times that he’s more than capable of handling himself. Once again, her judgement of him for being born an aristocratic male, something he can’t help, was way too hypocritical for me.
There was also a painful amount of repetition about Adelaide’s humble beginnings and the reasons these two can’t be together and that felt like flat filler which I just found annoying. It played too much into Adelaide’s odd need to be some sort of martyr and undermined the closeness she and Henry were building even more.
I wanted more partnership between Adelaide and Henry, a coming together of equals. That’s what feminism means to me, and though we do get there in the end, the narrative leading up to it just felt too over the top and frankly killed the romance as the Belles were all grudgingly accepting of Henry but not genuinely happy for Adelaide to have found love. That doesn’t feel like joy or supporting the sisterhood or whatever, it feels like more hypocrisy and agenda pushing. This book wasn’t bad; it had some great scenes and I did like it more than the previous book, but it just felt like a cookie cutter ‘strong independent heroine’ book without the depth it needed to be truly memorable, and my hopes were high enough that I expected something more.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/3866122676
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4248682115
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