Overall: 3.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: Third person from the hero and heroine
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: Yes, 3 weeks later
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy through Netgalley

Should I read in order?
I picked his one up alone and thought it was fine, BUT the first book (The Boxing Baroness) does establish the girls friendships and the circus (I have heard)

Basic plot:
Cecile runs a successful circus, and when Guy loses everything, he tries to make amends with his lost love, even if that means working for her.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency time period (1816)
- London setting
- second chance romance
- circus performer and sharp shooter heroine
- found family
- child in the story
- LGBT positive
- Duke turned commoner hero
- You don’t mind some time jumps to get the full story (it’s not overwhelmingly back and forth – more of a prologue, present day, past, then present day again)
- work place romance- ish??
- touch of other man jealousy
- experienced heroine – she’s had affairs and knows what she likes
- mains in their 30s
- medium steam – 3 full scenes (I might be off?) with some very light praise kink

Ages:
- Heroine is around 36, hero is 32

First line:
”Manon Cecile Tremblay Blanchet!” Michael Blanchet hissed.

My thoughts:
So I thought this book was really unique! I liked a lot of the plot line and the characters.

Cecile is very independent, spunky, strong and brave and I enjoyed her quite a bit. She runs an all female circus which I thought was a different career for a Regency woman. She does have a bit of emotional constipation when it comes to Guy but I liked the way they worked it out by the end.

Guy is a duke but finds out who likes him and who likes his title when he loses and becomes a plain mister. He can’t get Cecile out of his mind and when he returns to her, they have some explosive interactions.

I do struggle with second chance. Many times the tension is all fizzled by the time the reader arrives and I’m left with the relationship turmoil that I didn’t get the build up to it. I did like how this one played out in that we were given the past towards the beginning of the story and I wasn’t left wondering. But still….I felt like I was missing all my favorite parts of romance.

There is quite a bit of enemies to lovers feel from Cecile towards Guy. Guy ended the affair badly and Cecile makes him pay for it by being the butt of her jokes in the circus and cleaning all the poop. I haven’t been in love with enemies to lovers lately either because the animosity doesn’t give me feels like it does for some others.

There are also a ton of side characters in this one, which did enhance the story – they really were delightful – but combined with the other things, I just wanted more for their relationship on page. All that is just what I prefer in romance and I don’t think it will bother most others.

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:

Cecile whimpered at the loss of him.
“Don’t be greedy,” he murmured. “I need my other hand, but you’ve got two that are doing nothing. Play with yourself for me, darling.”
---
She gloried in the sensation of being filled and stretched, grinding hard against his hand as she gorged on his muscular torso and the way his biceps bulged as he pleasured her.
“Yes, that’s my good girl,” he said, meeting her thrust for thrust. “Use me hard and make yourself com.”
 

Content warnings:

   
- Mention of affairs – the heroine had an affair with her married cousin when she was young (17/18)
- Abusive, toxic family members
- Reign of Terror as a child
- Death of a parent on page
- Marriage of a child (without consummation) heroine is 14
- Scenes of death and terror in a storm in a small boat
- Attempted sexual assault on page
- Gunshot wound on page
- Mention of plantation owners on an island off the coast of africa

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Safe sex: 

No but after sex where he blew it in her, she said she would take care that there were no reminders (children)

 
28% - 🔥blowjob (incomplete), her on top
78% - kisses
82% - 🔥kisses, breast play, fingering for her, her on top
85% - 🔥oral for her, missionary