Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: Yes! So many funny parts
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: Yes, some months later
Format: mix between e-book checked out through hoopla and audiobook checked out through hoopla

Should I read in order?
Maybe, yes? Book 1 is Lady Derring Takes a Lover and I did find myself wondering if I would have a bit more knowledge of the The Grand Palace on the Thames and the characters if I had started there. It’s definitely readable alone though!

Basic plot:
Lucien needs a place to stay and he finds a room at The Grand Palace on the Thames is perfect, almost as perfect as it’s proprietor...

Give this a try if you want:
- London setting
- Regency (my assumption)
- widow heroine with a mysterious past
- working women – heroine owns a boarding house
- prodigal hero returns (from the dead)
- medium steam – 2 full scenes (one flame I combined together with 2 acts)
- lovely banter and dialogue
- hilarious scenes and lovable side characters
- angsty!

Ages:
- Hero is 33, heroine is 29 (nearly 30)

My thoughts:
This book was a really pleasant read. I haven’t read much by Long, but I really loved her writing style in this one. There were quite a few lines I found swoony and poetic, and the humor in this one was really great!

I did get a touch bored in the middle of the book, and I did wish for a bit more tension – there was a bit of instalust at play here and I didn’t feel much when they got into their first kiss or bedroom scene together. The first kiss kind of felt like it was out of nowhere to me.

The ending though, I really loved. I thought the whole thing was gripping – So many sweet parts from the agonizing all is lost moment, to the way Angelique makes it up to Lucien. Definitely made me more eager to try more by Long – and definitely go back and read the first book in the series. 😆

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts: (I wrote these from audio so any grammar mistakes are my own)

“I think the fact that the Grand Palace on the Thames is thriving is proof enough that miracles happen, Lord Bolt.”
“I think,” he mused, “your bottom lip is a miracle.”
---
She shifted to move against him. She threaded her fingers up through his hair, and just like that, for moments or dragging, glorious eons, that kiss went dangerously carnal. He kisses her as though her bare legs were already hooked over his shoulders and the mattress was squeaking beneath them. He was tempted to furl her dress and yank open his trouser buttons, and he thought for an instant, “Yes. Yes, we can do this in twenty seconds. So what if someone comes upon us?”

Content warnings:

- Hero’s step mother arranged to have him kidnapped and imprisoned on a clipper ship

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
32% - kiss
59% - 🔥kisses, her on top on the chaise lounge
72% - 🔥kisses, missionary then followed by another scene of her on top
94% - mention of having lots of sex