This is my first book by Cathleen Ross and I was so excited for this book based on the synopsis. The hero, Aaron, is being forced to marry against his will because his father, the duke, needs money and heirs. He comes across Crystal, who speaks for women's rights, believes in desire, and has said marriage is not for her, and decides shes the perfect thing to stir up his family.

Unfortunately this book was just not for me. I can't say I could get into Crystal much after she says a lot of shocking and aggressive things for the time and then gets surprised when the men react badly.

Things like:

Women deserve their freedom and should get to decide who to marry. Their intelligence is equal to a man's. Women want to enjoy sexual congress. Women feel desire.

At first I thought I would enjoy this book because she spoke for those things, but how naive she was...she just didn't strike me as a suffragette that was going to make a difference sadly because she'll be too busy having tomatoes thrown at her and sitting in jail. Her tact was completely missing and I just found her too brash (especially after reading books like Bringing Down the Duke, which I adored)

There were a few things I enjoyed in the book like the discussions on new inventions of the home including water closets and showers. It's fun experiencing that stuff from someone's eyes that are seeing it for the first time. It must have been glorious hahaha. I also enjoyed the family dinner and the banter with the family. But nothing between the hero and heroine really and that is why I give this book such a low rating.

But I just never got into the love story. Or either character really. The hero I just didn't like. He came across as literally only caring about having sex. It was all he thought about, the bulge in his pants, and it was focused on so much I knew nothing about him, except he had a bulge in his pants and it was bothering him. He didn't seem to REALLY get to know the heroine. Like how he admired her so much for her women's rights ideals and fighting for children to learn instead of being put to work, yet was shocked when she fought back at him after he was ordering her around and commanding her. And he also had another suitor he wasn't interested in, but the only reasons were are given are her laugh and her beaver teeth. I just thought it was awful. Don't dislike people for things they can't control. Dislike them for their actions, if need be. She was also described as a 'Dreadful overdressed creature with teeth like a beaver? She sounds like a wheezing donkey.' by another character in the book. Yet all we see of her character is she is a debutante trying to find a husband and doing what her mother tells her. She's not mean or vindictive or malicious. She's just not good enough for the hero's bulge in his pants and it made me dislike him even more.

This is just my own opinion. If you've read her before please feel free to share your feelings below! I know some things I dislike in a book can be another person's favorite.

Thanks netgalley for the complimentary ARC. These thoughts and opinions are my own.


MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW – BE WARNED!!!!!! LEAVE POST NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT SPECIFIC PLOT DISCUSSION.
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Spoiler

Then there was this really weird side part in the book about white slavery. It just seemed so random and was not done well and the subject surely wasn't done justice. It didn't sit well with me the way it was presented, with the heroine saying things like “There are no white slaves.” and “The working class was so ignorant they would believe anything they were told.” She doesn't keep these views, but I felt like her 'awakening' wasn't done well enough for me to care about her any more after this experience. And then she uses some line later that she's a slave to her passion or feelings for the hero (something like that) and I just thought it was in really bad taste with that going on in the book. And lastly when they find who was kidnapping people they make sure he doesn't hang so that he too can be a slave. So they were so abhorred with the idea of slavery they made sure he becomes that?

And lastly she has sworn off marriage and he knows he can't marry her so he basically wants her a mistress. And she's only mildly upset. And after all this supposed conflict he just decides to ask her to marry him and it says

But she realized she loved him.

It was just so...blah. So anticlimactic. No feels. I have no idea if these people truly love each other and I am not left with a feeling that they will live happily ever after and that's just sad.