The Sins of Lord Lockwood, by Meredith Duran, was just everything I love in a book. I had debated where to go next after At Your Pleasure, a stand-alone, and while this is late in her series, it was interconnected to the only other Duran I've read, The Duke of Shadows, and I was desperate to know more about Lockwood after seeing him as a side character in that. 

Each of the three books I've read by Duran have been second-chance romances, and while The Duke of Shadows was the most cathartic of the three (nothing will beat that champagne bottle throw at the ball), this was the most tender. Lord Lockwood enters into a marriage of convenience (that is actually, secretly, a love match for both of them, despite its convenience) with Anna, a fiercely independent and phenomenally wealthy Scot who is willing to give a man *part* of her fortune if it means the deed to her family's Scottish isle can finally be hers. But the night of their wedding ends in an argument and then Lockwood's subsequent disappearance... For FOUR YEARS. Our story is told in dual timelines - at present, when they've very begrudgingly reunified after his mysterious return, and four years prior, during the weeks they fell in love and married.

Duran DELIVERS on this wild premise, once again throwing an otherwise happy couple into the most horrific circumstances she can cook up to see how they fare. And all the pain is worth it because we get:
❤️‍🔥 High-stakes and high-angst mutual pining
❤️‍🔥 Emotionally and physically scarred MMC who fears he's unworthy of our FMC 💔
❤️‍🔥 Blindfolds, see above 🥵
❤️‍🔥 Caretaking
❤️‍🔥 Loveable cast of side characters (only former convicts who don't know what the heck to do with paisley as valets from here on out, please)
❤️‍🔥 The sexiest saved marriage of the 19th century
❤️‍🔥 Justice ⚖️
 
I highly recommend this to anyone who loves an angsty second-chance romance where the couple faces significant obstacles outside the relationship and scarred MMCs overcoming traumatic pasts.