Overall: 3.5 stars rounded to a full ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for breaking my heart at the end
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Intimate Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes! Plenty of humor, banter, and silliness
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine’s perspectives

Should I read in order?
Ideally you could because the heroes and heroines from books 1 and 2 are in this story, but overall I think it’s okay to pick up on it’s own. There isn’t strong character development in the prior books for this hero and heroine.

Basic plot:
Henrietta has been taking care of Stannage Park for years. Now that her guardian is dead, she’s worried her new guardian will come make changes or make her leave, marry her off...

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency time period (1816)
- Country and London setting – most of the book takes place at the country home/farming area the hero inherits but there is some time spent in the London social whirl
- Guardian/ward trope
- Oh no, one bed
- Touch of ugly ducking feel – heroine runs wild around the estate, wearing pants, going by the name “Henry” but she becomes society’s diamond after some London shopping
- Medium steam (3 full scenes and lots of kisses)
- A bit of enemies to lovers feel in the beginning though it’s more playful banter/pranks then they morph into a friends to lovers feel
- Hero loves first
- You’ll have to be okay with a hero that is possessive, jealous, and a bit controlling

Ages:
- Heroine is 20, hero is 29

My thoughts:
Gosh, this book really made me feel all the emotions! I laughed, I was bored, I fell in love, I was annoyed, I was irritated with the characters, my heart broke for the characters.

Before I got to the ending drama, I was setting around 3.5 stars, but the ending just wrecked me. It just wrecked me in the best way. Even though all of it is all rather hair pullingly frustrating I just ATE IT UP. The angst. The heartbreak. The pain. I was utterly gripped in their drama and emotions. And I just had to rate it 5 stars for that. I never feel that anymore and it’s what I adore in romance. Is it messed up? Probably. Hurt me. Make me cry. Abuse me and I’ll love you.

Henry is our heroine. And I did really like her. She was a bit irritating to me in the beginning, pushing her pranks a bit far. But my heart really broke for her. Orphaned at an early age, she has had the run of Stannage Park for a number of years. Everyone looks to her for advice and she keeps everything running smoothly. She runs around in pants and it’s repeatedly mentioned she “doesn’t know how to be a girl”. She has some thoughts of low self esteem surrounding this and this does come up repeatedly as an issue with the hero, so I think many will have a hard time with that. I think the resolution could have been a little more focused on her loving herself for herself and not feeling like she has to change at all. She’s very worried about displeasing him and it’s heartbreaking. She tends to curb her behavior to make sure it pleases him and I feel like she’s ready to lose herself, her individuality, to his whims, which he can be oblivious to how this could hurt her in the long term.

Dunford is...well I loved him and hated him. He’s not going to be a palatable hero to everyone. He’s possessive, he’s jealous, and he does come off as controlling. But he also said and did romantic things to me, his thoughts, his playfulness with her I loved. You get a decent amount of time in Dunfords head and I think that helps me forgive his actions more than I would otherwise.

The ending! I’ll admit I thought the ending drama was completely absurd. The fact that the heroine decided she loved him too much so she couldn’t tell him the truth, but she could do something that would drive him away from her, it was just absurd. Absurd! And I was really annoyed with the going ons and their reasoning but their FEELINGS. Their heartbreak just gutted me. I was wrecked in the best way and their make up is all the sweeter for what they’ve gone through.

I do think this book was a bit long and could have been cut a bit.

A few other random thoughts about this series – I love that the titles actually have something to do with the stories. The phrases are actually used in the stories and it makes the titles that much more special.

Minx was my favorite of the series and my favorite Julia Quinn book I’ve read so far. Also the first I’ve rated 5 stars. Even though I had some major issues with it, I would reread it.


Content Warnings:

There’s a bit of a rough scene where the hero is so stressed the heroine reaches into a bee hive to get a honeycomb because he’s seen men die from bee stings that he roughly shakes her and hurts her a bit, yells at her and forces her to promise to never do it again, even though she’s been doing it her whole life.
Some scenes of dubious consent
Focus on gender stereotypes – Henry is repeatedly told she doesn’t know how to be a girl and she is self conscious over that.
Worries over infidelity – heroine believes the hero has cheated on her, the reader knows he hasn’t.

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes (taken from audiobook may be off from other versions): 

30% - kiss
53% - kiss
65% - kiss
71% - kiss
72% - 🔥 kisses, light breast play, fingering for her, missionary
88% - cruel kiss
91% - 🔥 wedding night kisses that lead to oral for her (vague), sex
98% - 🔥 missionary sex