As with Bringing Down the Duke, I had a couple of issues with this one. None with the story or our main characters this time — it's an excellent enemies-to-lovers tale set in the late Victorian era with a strong, outcast noblewoman activist as our lead and a rakish, not-quite-as-outcast nobleman poet as her love interest. It's a compelling, well-paced, detailed plot with so many satisfying payoffs. The characterizations make sense and the relationship is sizzling.

The representation, however, isn't great. There's one LGBTQ character (see content notes for spoilerish issues), one person of color (see content notes), and one English nobleman expressing anti-colonial sentiment and speaking respectfully about East Asian culture but still appropriating a Hindu deity for a possibly sexualized tattoo. Yeah — not great. If those missteps had been caught in a sensitivity read, this would've been a 5-star historical romance for me with a fun look at the state of publishing in the late 1800s as well as the fight for women's rights in society and the fight for truth and trust in personal relationships.

Content notes: physical abuse of a child (off stage, but mentioned/effects described), emotional abuse, death of a pet, PTSD and war trauma, blackmail, spousal abuse, character with bipolar-like symptoms, Victorian era sexism, Victorian era homophobia, voyeurism (off page), implied orgy, steamy sex scenes, only LGBTQ+ character is miserable and villainous, only character of color is a servant, cultural appropriation of Hindu deity