Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖 (Even though this book is really long, it was an easier read than I was expecting)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (I felt I didn’t know much about the hero)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡ (Not much tension for me!)
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋 (The scenes are very short and vague – more euphemistic and not explicit)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑 (a paragraph to a few paragraphs without much detail)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥 (There’s a number of scenes but they aren’t very explicit or long so I settled at a 2 flame feel)
Humor: A bit
Perspective: Mostly third person from the heroine but some from the hero (and maybe a touch from a side character here and there)
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slow to medium
When mains are first on page together: Pretty soon in – I have it at pg 34 of 512 or about 6% in
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after for the mains
Epilogue: No
Format: read a paperback borrowed from my library (MelCat State Lending Library)
Why I chose this book: Her name came up in our Vintage Romance book and I was curious if my library had any of hers because many of her releases are out of print
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This is a stand alone romance I believe but I did see in another review that Brad was in Defiant Spitfire as a character if you want to read that first!

Basic plot:
Shauna is determined to never marry unless it’s on her own terms – to avoid an undesirable marriage, she offers her family estate as a dowry to a man that will agree to her terms...

Give this a try if you want:
- historical romance – the hero fought in the American Revolutionary War so I’d say late 1780s, possibly 1790s
- old school romance – published 1988
- enemies to lovers feel – the heroine fights the hero every step of the way
- former soldier hero
- hero is English but has lived in America for a number of years and fought for the Colonies in the Revolutionary War
- bargain – heroine offers her estate (Brad’s former home) as part of her dowry if she can have a marriage in name only
- secret identity
- secret keeping
- marriage of convenience
- lower steam – there’s quite a few sex scenes but they are mostly short, vague and filled with euphemisms

Ages:
- Didn’t catch them – the heroine I think is around 20? Hero I’m not sure...I would guess around 30

My thoughts:
My expectations for this one were SO low – the other one I read by this author I really despised because it was rape heavy and there was nothing redeemable about the hero. So I was kind of worried it would be similar but I was glad it wasn’t!

In this one – our heroine is the hard to love one. She is young. She is spoiled. She is manipulative and a bit sullen and basically a brat. And I really disliked her in the beginning. She was so painful to read, she made the dumbest mistakes. While people close to her tried to help her, she just kept self sabotaging. But...there were some scenes later in the book where we get some self reflection and vulnerability from her that melted by negative feelings a bit.

The hero in this one was rather fun! He was steadfast – he saw Shauna’s problems and stayed strong with her throughout and gave her so many chances to better herself. I liked the little...tricks he played on her to see what she would do while knowing the whole time what was going on. He was actually WAY nicer than I would have been.

Overall though I didn’t love this one – it isn’t one I would come back to though I did like it more than the other title

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: 2
Average rating from me: 2.5 stars
Favorite book: This one?

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

- dubious consent kisses elements/drunken sex
- poisoning death of someone on page
- domestic violence – the heroine does slap the hero
- there’s a few death scenes on page
Author content warnings? Nothing listed

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story: Some of them are noted by page number and some by chapter number...I returned the book before consolidating on a category choice sorry 😆

 
Safe sex: 

  No 

 
How’s the consent? 

  It’s….old school. I wouldn’t read this if you want strong consent. There’s some elements of dubious kisses. There’s a sex scene where the heroine is drunk...the hero resists and doesn’t push the heroine doesn’t even remember it the next day...no rape though, like the other book I read from her! 

 
Pregnancy/children in story? 

  Not on page but discussion of possibility of pregnancy 

 
Pg 89 – she slaps him and he kisses her
Chapter 8 – dream sex scene
Chapter 10ish – the heroine is drunk and is the aggressor for sex but doesn’t recall it the next day
Chapter 12 – sex
Chapter 13 – brief scene
Chapter 25 - sex
Total pages: 512