Perfection. No notes.

Literally. I always jot down notes as I’m reading a book, but I read this ARC in a daze of book-excellence and wrote down absolutely nothing. 

I loved:
💙 a secret identity trope that was making me sweat
💙 sex lessons from chapter one
💙 a lovesick fool hero
💙 a horny af heroine
💙 excellent use of epistolary elements
💙 “stay”
💙 god-tier rake reformation
💙 deliciously messy angst

There’s a lot I could gush about in this book. The setting was atmospheric, the plot was anything but formulaic, and the wholesome friendships have me pumped for the series.

But what underpinned all this amazingness, for me, were the characters. They were so well-written, so unique, and so real that I was INVESTED.

How many times have we read the reluctant duke who for some reason has a six pack? But Jack made so. much. sense. Of course he didn’t expect to become a duke—the former duke, his cousin, was a young man newly married. Of course he was a ripped and adventurous scoundrel—he’d made his fortune captaining a ship in the navy. And of course he didn’t want to be the duke—he had history with the dowager duchess, the duchy was off in the wilds of Scotland, and he already had all the status and responsibility he could handle.

And then there was Helen, our Scottish thistle and one of the most unique historical romance heroines out there. She was a Countess in her own right, thank you Scottish inheritance laws. And move over every impoverished peer ever, Helen was over here living in an abandoned castle, not able to afford food to eat, wearing pants, with hands fully callused from all the manual labour she was doing. She was such a moving mixture of heart and determination that my eyes are getting teary just thinking about her 🥲