I will admit that this wasn’t my favorite by Milan that I have read so far. Even though this is the first book in the series, I read it second, having received the sequel through an ARC offer. So, I think that may have tinged my view of Judith as a person before starting it and one of the reasons that it took so long to get through as well as getting distracted by other books. Overall it was an enjoyable read but I didn’t find that the romance was well developed with Christian and Judith. Now a lot of that could be due to them having an established backstory that took place before the events of the story did. But I feel that some of the long dormant romance would still would have needed to be rekindled more. Judith seemed very forgiving for someone whose life was completely turned upside down based on Christian’s findings and while that could just be a testament to her character, I still feel there would have been more than the gentle rebuff she gave him at the beginning. It seemed to progress very quickly with the last 75% of the story.

As a heroine Judith was mostly enjoyable. Her seemingly quick forgiveness of Christian none withstanding, she seemed to be more human than most, starting with her frustrating with Theresa and then the moment where she snapped. Most everyone has had this moment with their child or younger sibling where they were unnecessarily cruel for no other reason than they had enough. However, she did apologize for her harsh words while making Theresa accountable for her mistake rather than letting her slide. Overall, she did well with the crappy hand that life dealt with her and managed to stay classy about it.

As a hero Christian was also enjoyable. I appreciated he honest he was with himself and then finally others about the opium addiction. It’s reassuring to see this type of addiction acknowledged in a romance when in others it seems brushed off and just to be part of the times. While others may feel he was too black and white when it came to the behavior of Judith’s father and brother, I felt that aligned with his character since I read him as someone who, were he born in this modern day and age, would have been placed on the Spectrum. So, it fit in with his character overall at least in my opinion. And he did have guilt over the part he played in the downfall of the Worth family but his moral compass didn’t let him take any other direction for it.

I don’t want to give spoilers on this but there was one specific thing that enraged me in this book. So, I do want to see how this progresses due to some of the seeds that were planted for later stories but I also admit that a lot of backstory and explanation will need to be relayed for me to be forgiving. Not that it can’t happen, since MacLean did it with The Day of the Duchess. But there will need to be a lot of work done to make the character that this happened with endearing to me. All in all, another enjoyable read from this author. It’s by no means my favorite or her best but it was still good.