I was so excited to receive an ARC of Bed Me, Duke, by Felicity Niven, in exchange for an honest review. And the verdict is that I honestly loved it. I thoroughly enjoyed Felicity's first series, The Lovelocks of London (its first book, Convergence of Desire, is an all-time fave), and I'm so excited that we are kicking off another full series.

Felicity's female main characters are always so well-developed, and Helen is up there with Harry (Convergence of Desire) for me. Helen, a prickly Highlander and a countess in her own right by Scottish inheritance laws, has had to make tremendous sacrifices to support the people who depend on her (see: the Clearances). When we meet Helen, she is literally hungry and cold, but above all, she is righteously angry. Enter unprepared, unsuspecting, and unnervingly handsome Captain Jack Pike, a British naval officer who has inherited a Dukedom he sure-as-heck does not want after his cousin suffers an early death, leaving no heirs and a lot of property in the Highlands he has no clue what to do with.

Helen is self-sufficient, bold and brave, but she lacks resources and good fortune, frankly, and Jack Pike is, well, extremely fortunate in a lot of ways and is mostly hiding from his own life and responsibilities. In an effort to scope out his new inheritance without the weight of expectation, he poses as the Duke's right-hand man, and travels to his new property, which, of course, borders Helen's. What follows is delicious - a very muddy meet-cute, lots of aggressive flirting, the "I can't go 24 hours without you but I am surely not IN LOVE with you" brand of emotional constipation I devour in historicals, and steamy sex lessons that quickly move from educational to devotional. Bonus points for she-carries-a-dirk-and-doesn't-need-your-protection and reformed-rake-commits-to-fidelity-explicitly-on-page (I LOVE THESE MOMENTS).

If you loved our take-charge Annie in Making of a Highlander and enjoy seeing a brawny man brought to his literal and figurative knees, I highly recommend Bed Me, Duke, which releases July 6!