This has an enormously silly title, but it's still deeply entertaining. I laughed out loud at a number of points, because there's a really funny undertone going on here. A lot of it is lobster-related - the heroine is an illustrator of biological texts - and her scientific ambitions are appealing and relatable. The whole thing's just immensely good-natured. It might be my favourite Tessa Dare so far.

I'm beginning to sense a trend, however. In this, my year of reading more romance, there's been a sharp split between romances I like and romances I don't - with the latter, it's always down to the fact that the protagonists are terrible people. With the former, however... my interest is more often in the heroine than the hero. It's not the the hero isn't appealing, but I'm starting to note a cookie-cutter tendency here. Must the heroes all have miserable childhoods? Seriously. Perhaps I'm getting picky, but I'd like to see one with a man who isn't emotionally constipated because his family deserted him, or died around him, or mistreated him in some way. That particular trope was featured rather heavily here, and though lobsters make up for a great deal I was beginning to side-eye the endless litany of childhood woe. I'd rather read more suffering along the lines of the poetry night - "Were I a steed, I'd neigh for thee" - because that shit was hilarious.