1816

This is the second installment to Jess Michael's newest series The Duke's Bastards. A duke had no problem spreading his seed all over London, and having multiple children. After the duke passes, his legitimate son, Robert, gathers them together to help them succeed in life. Robert has his own story in a previous series. If you are on that wants the whole world in order, then start there, as he and his wife are characters in this book. If you don't care about that, this book is perfectly fine as a stand alone.

Selena is Robert's half sister, a bastard child of the prior duke. She is the Faceless Fox, a thief that has been eluding investigators for years and stealing jewels. Robert wants to see her living life and invites her to a house party in the country where, conveniently, one of her next target jewels will also be.

Derrick Huntington (the last book I read, Her Night with the Duke by Diana Quincy, also had a hero named Huntington!) has spent time in the army but now is working as an investigator. His main goal is to catch the Faceless Fox and stop their crime spree. He wrangles and invitation to the house party to continue his search for the suspect.

Their chemistry is immediate. I think they both feel some instalust for each other. Selina is trying to keep an eye on him and monitor his investigation, but it turns into her hands she can't keep off. And Derrick keeps telling himself he has other things to focus on, but is instead drawn to Selena repeatedly. This book is really, really steamy. If you don't like multiple explicit sex scenes, then pass this one by. It's all here, against a wall, masturbation, blowjobs. I think it was probably balanced, or even leaning more heavily to the romance/sex compared to the investigation portion of the book.

I did find the heroine on the unique side. Not very often I read of a heroine criminal, it's usually the hero I feel like. So that was a fun change.

But I only give this book 3 stars. I didn't feel the tension and wanting between them, I felt like they jumped into sex really fast. I wanted that build up. I also wasn't a fan of the deceit. I get it was going to happen but it continued for way to long in the book and the heroine had an opportunity to make it right and chose to continue to deceive until the very end. I will admit I am harsh on that stuff. Anything deceitful usually pushes me off big time so you might like this book more than I did. The sex was really hot, but to me it didn't have the feelings behind it that I wanted. I think I liked the first story a little bit more than this one in the series.