This is book 2 in the series but is perfectly fine as a stand alone, at least that's how I felt not having read book 1.

Jane is doing research on the behavior of scoundrels and needs notes to write her book. She ends up sneaking into a brothel where she meets our hero, Raven. After their encounter, she knows she recognizes his birthmark from somewhere and is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. Jane can be a little interfering, but Raven never seemed to be out of his comfort zone with her direction so it didn't bother me. Jane has a very large family and very neglectful parents and she is just aching for someone to really see her, respect her, understand her longings in life. And I think Raven's playfully flirtatious personality was perfect for her.

Raven was orphaned as an infant and has lived a life of hard work and abuse. He has worked hard to get his own living place and even secured a few books to own. I usually find the heroine to be the bookworms in HR in general, and I loved seeing Raven's breath catch when he enters a well stocked library. I will always have a soft spot for the street heroes of HR. And Raven has a bit of that hardness to him, but he also has a fun personality. I found him humorous, playful and sexy.

I really absolutely loved this book right up until the end. THE END. We'll talk about that later. I thought this book had a great build over time of tension and touches and longing. I thought Jane and Raven were focused on each other for most of the book. Some parts were funny. Some were so heartwarming. Raven was really a great hero and I felt like he truly loved Jane and her family, who is obviously important to her.

I found this book to be filled with so many little scenes that built the tension. So many touches, almost touches, almost kisses, a stroke of a collarbone above a dress. I loved them. There is a scene where Jane is teaching Raven some of the social niceties of the ton and she's explaining how when making calls on women it's important to keep your hat and gloves with you so your hostess knows you won't be sharing intimacies with a guess. Raven informs her of at least 7 ways he could ravish her while keeping his hat and gloves intact. There's no kisses but it's so. Damn. Sexy. The wanting I felt during that scene was wonderful.

Give this book a try if you are in the mood for
A class differences feel – the hero is an orphan that grew up on the streets and the heroine is a daughter of a viscount
Secret/hidden identity – (maybe a bit of a stretch) the hero is an orphan trying to find out his origins
Enough mystery to move the story along but not overwhelmingly taking over
Moderate steam – it felt a bit on the lower end to me, but the scenes are detailed and explicit. They were just concentrated at the end (see end of review for amounts/percentage location in book)

So. The END. Was a disaster for me. It was such an amazing, wonderful book until the end. Then. Everything happened. It was way too much crammed into a short percentage. Some of it didn't really make sense as far as the characters went. I didn't approve at all of Raven's actions. I also dislike when another character has to come in and kind of “fix” the problem and that's what happened here. I want the characters to be able to mostly figure it out themselves. There was just so much...I didn't like anything at the end.

I also didn't like the way some of Raven's darker moments of his past were handled. It almost skimmed over it, like see, look I'm fine, wink wink and I guess I would have preferred some more gut wrenching conversation closure on it than a gloss over.

Locations/amounts of kisses and sexy scenes

Spoiler

First kiss - 34%
Second kiss - 54%
Fondling for her - 69%
First sex scene - 75%
Second sex scene (brief) - 88%

I voluntarily read this arc through NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions on the book are my own.