Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: third person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: Not too far in, 11% (chapter 3 of 17)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, a few years later
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from the author in e-book form
Why I chose this book: I really love Knight’s writing and want to read all her books!
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This is book 3 in Knight’s That Scandalous Fairplace Family series but I think it’s fine alone – the book is really focused on our mains with only some brief mention of other characters – but I think the series is really fun and cute and I loved all the books in it so I think reading the series in order would also be delightful!

Basic plot:
Violet is enjoying her trip from Geneva to Paris escorting her friend’s daughter, but her trip is thrown into turmoil when she finds a man hiding in her trunk instead of her belongings.

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian – 1870
- Switzerland to Paris setting
- half-English/Prussian hero (that has been in quite a few countries and knows German, French, Hog Latin….)
- widow heroine
- tour guide/spy hero – he has conducted mountain tours
- trains!
- road trip
- they fall in love fast
- child free HEA
- novella length
- medium steam – 2 full scenes in a shorter page count

Ages:
- heroine is 29, didn’t catch hero

First line:
Violet’s breath plumed in the air as she strode up the gangplank onto the steamship, her heavy wool skirts swishing through the cold air.

My thoughts:
Another delightful, romantic novella from Knight! I love her books so much. I like that we are leaving to other places in Europe and riding lots of trains 😍

These mains meet on a train in Switzerland when the hero hides in the heroine’s trunk from his enemies. This leads to a fun road trip romance where they fall in love quickly, getting to know each other while running from rival spy agents.

Violet and Jakob are both so sweet and I loved getting to know them. They just feel perfect for each other and the epilogue was really sweet too. There were a lot of really sweet lines and I felt the romance between these two!

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 6
Average rating from me: 5 stars
Favorite book: Probably Just Think of the Scandal but they are all good!

Quotes any typos are my own! I am bad with typos, I apologize

But Violet wanted to make sure he didn’t understand any English before she started spouting off mangled English.
Well. Only one way to find out.
She took a breath. “Sir,” she said politely.
The man glanced up at her, their eyes locking.
Violet suppressed the shiver of excitement that went through her at his gaze. “Sir,” she said in a conversational, friendly ton. “You are a bastard.”
She held her breath.
He blinked, smiling a little.
Alma sucked in a breath beside her. Violet reached over and grabbed the girl’s hand, a silent warning to not react.
“You are a bastard. Your mother is a whore. And you reek of horse excrement.” She smiled broadly at the end, watching for any reaction.
Schmidt cocked his head with a hesitant smile. “Ja?” he inquired, looking so innocent wrapped in that blanket.
She nodded encouragingly. “Ja.”

 

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- minor scenes of violence with a knife
- remembrances of a bad marriage
- infertility and miscarriages remembered
Author content warnings? This book contains explicit depictions of sexual relationships between consenting adults. There are scenes containing coarse language and violence. There are mentions of infertility and pregnancy loss, cheating and blackmail.

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:

Safe sex: 

  She asks him to pull out (and he thinks about purchasing condoms/sponges) 

How’s the consent? 

  It’s good 

Pregnancy/children in story? 

  The heroine has had a number of miscarriages and can't carry to term and has decided to live a child free HEA with the hero 

39% - kisses
51% - 🔥 kisses, fingering with some edging for her, handy for him on the train
63% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, doggy
”You said you want me deep,” he pointed out between kisses.
“Mmhmm.”
Jakob grabbed her hand and tugged her up into a sitting position, then wrapped his hands firmly around her waist. “On your hands and knees, then.”
84% - a quick sex scene on the train