Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes, a bit

Should I read in order?
Sure, why not?? There are characters here that make appearances throughout the series. Though if you don’t mind not knowing other characters backgrounds this one is okay to jump into as a stand alone.

Basic plot:
Lady Hell (Helena) spends her time running her father’s shipping business and attempting to thwart Roan (Duke of Leighton) out of sales he desires. An experience 10 years ago has created this tense relationship but they cannot seem to leave each other alone and it soon results in a fake engagement during the holidays.

Give this a try if you want:
- Late Regency period – 1823
- Half in London, half at the hero’s country house (or maybe ¼ and ¾)
- Much of the story takes place around Christmas
- Medium steam – 3 full scenes but this book has a touch shorter page count so may feel hotter
- Class differences – hero is a duke, heroine was raised on the docks
- A touch of fake relationship and enemies to lovers – neither really lasts long
- You love a lot of focus on the relationship development – no villain or mystery going on here
- Ruined heroine!

(Hero is around 31/heroine around 27?)

My thoughts:
Tracy Sumner is doing something amazing with this series! Each book has been so romantic with unique characters and some playfulness mixed in.

Here we have Roan, the Duke of Leighton, who has wanted Helena since first sight. He’s never been able to get into her good graces, as rumors of his escapades color her opinions. Watching him chase after her and ever so sweetly beat down her defenses while taking nothing of her away was uber sweet. Also, Id like to point out that he’s left handed so woohoo for finally seeing one of my kind in a historical romance.

And our heroine, Helena, Lady Hell to the ton, and Hellie to Roan. She’s so strong and independent, but endearing because she lets you into her heart and her fears that she will just never be enough as a duchess. She knows what she can do and what she’s comfortable with, which is running her business on the docks – so seeing her go out of her comfort zone for her love of Roan and him supporting her every step of the way was beautiful.

I really enjoyed this story, though I must admit I loved The Brazen Bluestocking just a touch more (just a character attachment!). There’s something about Sumner’s writing I just find so poetic and I find myself continually highlighting everything because it’s so breathtaking I want to capture it. Its filled with romance, and longing, and little touches and thoughts. Her intimate scenes are a wonderful mix of character thoughts and emotions, the pull towards each other, the explosion of passion as well as the details.

Each title has a short description/phrase, almost like a chapter title and I LOVED that. I can’t remember who I used to read when I was much younger that did that regularly, but I always enjoyed that part of books and I haven’t seen much like that since then.

One of my only complaints was about 60% through the book (Not really a spoiler. But I don’t want to make people see something they won’t see otherwise so check this out after you read it.)

I started visually picking up the italicized words and it was like once I saw it I couldn’t unsee it. It just seemed like there were a lot of emphasized words – just pure weirdness here from me and nothing that really affected the story, it just affected my reading a bit.

Here’s a few random parts that I wanted to note from the book:

I thought the entire idea behind and talking about the Leighton Cluster was hilarious.

I loved when he was so wrapped up in her when he was removing her splinter he almost starts kissing her hand in public.

And their first kiss

Taking advantage of her breathless pause and his violent craving, he captured her lips, his demand conveyed in his touch.
(Some skipped)
Although now, he had leagues of experience. His intent was fully manageable. Cool, calm, collected purpose. Practice prowess. The ability to seduce.
Until the kiss ignited like a fresh wick dipped into a flame and raced away from him.
Just before Helena closed her eyes, Roan caught arousal spilling into them like cream into oolong tea. A feeling rose in him, one unfamiliar but welcome. An emotion strong enough to cause his heart to flutter, his breath to snag. The sensation was sharper than humble yearning, more potent than mere lust.
It scared him to death even as he embraced it.

And when they get caught

Obviously, fate intervened in its merciless way.
When a recently hired footman and a giggling maid who’d been looking for a place to share a quick tumble stumbled in and found the Duke of Leighton’s hands full of Lady Hell.
And Lady Hell’s Hands equally full of him.


After getting married and sitting through a dinner with little touches and whispers…

They raced to their bedroom. Raced.
“You’re not fast enough.” Roan panted and reached to toss her over his shoulder when they hit the first landing, taking the remaining stairs to the chamber two at a time. The hallway was thankfully deserted as he’d given his staff an early night, so no saw his hand drift under her skirt to cup her bottom as he loped down the corridor.


How friggen romantic

Roan caught her lips in a possessive kiss as he moved within her. Stretching, filling. Pleasure darts of fire danced along the back of her legs, her bottom, her spine.
“I’m doomed to want you every day, Hellie. Every hour. Every second. Never experience another release without your tastes on my lips, your scent in my nose. The feel of you imprinted on my fingertips.”


After she leaves and runs to London, this references the bets taken for how long their marriage would last.

Roan was in London.
The broadsheets had been full of his return without his duchess. And after lying in wait in the alley behind her warehouse, the newspaper rats then realized she’d returned without her duke.
Apparently, he’d caused a disturbance at White’s, ripping out a page in that useless betting book, throwing his fist into some bloke’s corpulent face. The glow this ridiculous gesture created in her belly was pathetic.



Fucking beautiful.

He’d come without a hint of a duke about him.
Dressed as informally as she’d ever seen him dress, looking like a man of industry, no, of labor. An enticement he knew, knew, would light her up inside. Tinder to dry birch. Pique her interest, earn her respect, as nothing else could. Bundled up in a heavy wollen coat, rumbled buckskins covering his long legs, Wellingtons that had been through the muck and then some on his feet. A flat cap of indiscriminate origin jammed on his head. Gloves stained. Dark hair dampened with sweat, cheeks flushed, a streak of dirt smeared across his jaw. She cataloged faster than her mind could assimilate, hungry for him.
Hungry and weak.
Weak. Weak. Weak.
A vision of being tangled in his arms, her legs wrapped around him, her fingers plunging into his hair as his hips thrust, rolled through her like a fever.
She could be his in the elemental ways.

Content Warnings:

Loss of parents discussed
Talk of sexual manipulation of heroine from her first lover

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

45% - kiss, she climbs on top of him on a piano bench, some groping and dry humping
54% - kiss
65% 🔥 - kisses, fingering for her where she shows him what she likes (adding another finger in and showing him the rhythm) and tells him how she thinks of him while touching herself. Mirror usage. She gives him a handjob.
73% 🔥 - kisses, breast play, oral for her, missionary
77% - brief remembered scene
80% - Remembered/alluded to sex
90% 🔥 - Kisses with him holding her up against a wall, moving to the floor for missionary