Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes, a bit
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
When mains are first on page together: Pretty soon in (chapter 2, about 6% or so)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: No
Format: listened to audiobook checked out on Hoopla

Should I read in order?
Ideally yes because the family is large and intertwined and overlapping in books. But I also think this one is fine for a rebel reader to pick up and read alone. Most of the book is focused on the mystery and Rosalind and Chase working together.

Basic plot:
Chase gets a message summoning him to a mysterious meeting and the last person he expects is Rosalind, a woman from his past.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency
- London setting
- mystery focused – hero and heroine work together to find the heroine’s missing sister
- widowed heroine
- teach me 
- naughty paintings
- a hero that has a passionate hatred for puppets 😂
- captain hero
- mid steam – 3 full scenes – slower burn and the last scene is on the light side

Ages:
- hero is ‘30-something’, and heroine is not yet 30

First line:
Banished.

My thoughts:
I swear when I started this and realized it was second chance, I was still going to give it my all. But combined with the mystery and me disliking the hero most of the book, this book wasn’t a favorite for me.

Our first interaction between Chase and Rosalind set the tone for me for the hero and I never really got over it. We know they have a past, and something happened to destroy their relationship. (Which, when I found out what it was, I didn’t think it was nearly as drastic as it was made to seem and no reason for Chase to treat Rosalind the way he did). Rosalind is desperate to find her missing sister and Chase basically smirks, belittles and condescends to her and I kind of hated him.

And the scene in the past where he smells her husband’s soap on her and acts like a jealous child? Bleh. 

I got a bit bored in the first half and wanted the mains together more. But then when they were together it was very mystery focused – mystery plot wise in finding the sister and mystery with their past relationship which is slowly revealed throughout the book.

I liked the heroine, but never grew to love either of these characters. This one wasn’t for me but I think if you enjoy second chance and a mystery aspect this will be a much smoother read for you.

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

- some possible problematic phrasing (small part) of ‘exotic girls that are dark and free’ from time in other countries
- human trafficking
- possible feelings of infidelity – hero goes to a brothel where he’s drunk and pretends the girl is the heroine but I don’t think anything happens with the girls. Also, their first kiss was when the heroine was married to someone else.
- remembrances of war and death
- scenes of attempted murder, violence

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: 

No 

 
22% - kiss (in the past)
32% - fingering for her behind some bookshelves, with other people right next to them (risk of getting caught), partial scene
73% - 🔥 sex against a bureau
82% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, 69
99% - 🔥 her on to in a chair (it’s pretty short but I counted it)