Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: No

Should I read in order?
There are a couple books prior to this, Scoundrel’s Vengeance being book 1 and Ringing in Yule being 1.5. I don’t think it’s totally necessary to read in order but I believe there’s some character cross over.

Basic plot:
When Malcolm and Isabella reconnect, he finds himself involved in a marriage of convenience. He gives them until Hogmanay to decide if they want to make the marriage a real thing

Give this a try if you want:
- 1346 time period
- Scotland setting
- beautiful heroine
- Scottish hero/French heroine
- bit of second chance feel
- touch of road trip romance
- shorter novel (goodreads has it at 187 pages)
- lower steam – I believe there’s just 1 scene (it’s a touch on the lighter side, not super explicit)

First line:
”Brothers!” Malcolm grinned, gestured at their surroundings, and inhaled the crisp, lilac-scented morning air.

My thoughts:
I didn’t much get into this one. I think if you want an adventurous, second chance road trip-ish feel and are okay with a touch lower steam, you might really enjoy this one though.

Second chance/flashbacks are one of my least favorite things in romance. I found the beginning of this one a bit confusing and I struggled to keep the timing straight and understand what was happening. The flash backs continued throughout the story, but I felt like they didn’t really have a strong enough background and history for it to be worth it to the story line.

Content warnings:

- Some dubious consent? Heroine kisses the hero but it’s to set him up and not out of misplaced passion
- Death of heroine’s former fiance
- The hero is very open about sleeping around with everyone to basically handle the stress of war
- Some scenes of violence/danger

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex:
Prior to 40% there were two very brief kisses
59% - kiss
98% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, missionary