Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (This is generous. The scenes are not overly long or super explicit)
Humor: A touch but overall I found this book has a somber feel
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and the heroine (lots from the hero!)
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: Yes, 6 months later
Reading Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy in e-book format

Should I read in order?
You could, but it’s not necessary. Cameron is our hero in this book and his sister, Jane, was the heroine in book 1. The romance and story do stand well alone though as there is not a lot of character overlap for either story.

Basic plot:
Cameron Dunn washes up on the shore in the Yucatan Peninsula and is begrudgingly rescued by Letty, who has greater priorities.

Give this a try if you want:
- Late Georgian time period (1824), but as this is the Yucatan Peninsula, I think it was the First Mexican Republic? (feel free to educate me, I know hardly anything about this area!)
- Yucatan Peninsula/London/Scotland settings (about half in Yucatan and the rest split)
- Scottish, red haired, Earl hero
- Maya, smuggler heroine
- Heroine nurses hero back to health AND hero nurses heroine back to health
- Skinny dipping
- LGBT positive

gay couples as side characters 

- bit of instalust – 

they don’t dive into it right away, the heroine holds him at arms length, but they don’t spend much time together before being intimate 

- asthma rep (hero)
- both virgins!
- touch of reverse grump/sunshine
- Medium to high steam – there are 4 full scenes. Mayberry’s prose leans towards the poetic and emotional versus explicit in some scenes.

First lines:
”SENORS! Ojo!” The pilot’s black hair whipped in the wind. His hand shook as he pointed at something beyond Cameron. Something out to sea.

My thoughts:
Ohh this book! It put me through the wringer. I am really enjoying the unique voice of Mayberry. Her characters, settings, and situations never go quite where I expect them to, and the emotional aspect is everything I crave in a romance.

This book has a bit of a reverse sunshine and grump feel, though fitting the dynamic relationship and characters in this book into that trope doesn’t explain it at all. Both were so unique and unlike any characters I have ever read before.

Cameron is just the sweetest man. He’s an Earl in Scotland that has ended up on the Yucatan. He knows he’s a good person and believes he is doing the best he can for everyone in his life. He’s positive, sweet, caring and protective but doesn’t realize protecting someone from everything can be suffocating and restrictive. His relationship with Letty opens his eyes to so much and his growth was really touching throughout the novel.

Letty is a hard character to love. She bucks every stereotypical romance heroine description. She is very closed off and protects her heart, even from her family. She really tore my (and Cameron’s!) heart out a few times and I’m still not sure I fully love her, but the epilogue placated me quite a bit. But even with those feelings, I have such respect for her. Bravo, Louise, for telling Letty’s story. Letty has one of those personalities that thinks they have to do everything themselves and the weight they carry on their shoulders is heavy. I think Cameron is the perfect match to her and together they are so much stronger.

I struggled a touch with the bit of instalust feels in this one. Letty was very closed off and a bit cold to Cameron. They also didn’t spend a lot of time actually communicating in the first half of the book so when they fell into bed together, for me, it didn’t quite hold the build up I personally love in romance. I also wanted Letty to come to her feelings a bit more solidly, I wasn’t convinced of her love at the end of the story (but again, the epilogue soothed me :) )

I did enjoy the ending resolution. I thought it it was well done!

Content warnings:

- Serious illnesses and fevers on page
- Mentions of slavery and colonization
- Death of and grief over parent’s passing
- Racism

Author given content warnings: [

themes of chattel slavery, oppression of Native Americans, and racially motivated violence. It also explores someone from a dominant culture coming to terms with this unconscious biases and narrow worldview.

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes: all these scenes are a touch light on the details and not overly long

 
Safe sex: 

They are both virgins and are wary of getting pregnant so the first few scenes don’t include penetration. When they commit to each other, there is no protection used but they are betrothed 

 
43% - kiss
46% - 🔥 breast play, fingering for her, hand job for him (the scenes are on the short side) in a hammock
49% - 🔥 a very brief mention of a scene together (implied oral for her) followed by a blow job for him in a cenote
69% - 🔥 missionary at the cottage, followed soon after by another missionary scene
96% - 🔥 missionary at the hotel
98% - brief mention of oral for her and sex