The first chapter touches on how Phoebe and Marcus have a history. A very brief and for Phoebe, a rather traumatizing event took place and she just cannot get over it. She never wants to set eyes on Marcus again, even after 8 years have passed.

Marcus fell into insta love with Phoebe the moment he saw her. He calls her his vision and it was kind of adorable how much he was certain they were meant to be together. However, he is young and arrogant, and has quite a lot of growing up and maturing to do, though he would never admit it. After 'the incident', he is banished to the West Indies (for other reasons as well) and he truly grows into a man and can admit his past mistakes.

After 8 years, he returns to England. He still cares deeply for Phoebe and only wishes to make her forgive him and allow him to make her happy. Phoebe hears of his return and flees to go shopping in London and visit friends, anything to avoid being in his presence.

This book fits something I have been missing lately. While not a totally conventional female, as she has been given much freedom with her 'older age', she is very much aware of the social requirements of the time. There is a scene that just screamed regency romance that I loved where she is standing with a man, whom she *gasp* hasn't been introduced to, and they were standing so close that her ruin would have been imminent if her aunt hadn't come and rescued her. This is something I feel is being somewhat lost in historical romance now, the risk that we just can't even fathom with the way our world is now. I miss that. Not that I want to read it all the time but I feel like it's few and far between with books now.

Unfortunately, after a little build up that I enjoyed where Phoebe didn't know Marcus' true identity, the story just got so boring. I kept waiting for something to happen. There is a villain that pops up occasionally and acts extremely predictable even though I couldn't understand why he was there. During much of the middle of the book, he felt like a mole in a whack a mole game. Attend a ball, evil villain lurks, someone, usually Marcus, whacks him and he's gone. Another ball, evil villain looms and leers, whack he's gone. It culminates at the end in a fairly predictable way.

I also just couldn't understand why Marcus loved Phoebe so much. She was completely ridiculous to me. And perhaps this is my being a hypocrite – I want the feels of the social structure of the times yet I felt Phoebe's reaction to Marcus' early behavior was absurd. She basically had PTSD and couldn't look at a man for 8 years because of a kiss. She was such a ninny.

When I'm done with the book, I just still felt like I don't know either them. I didn't get any character attachment or depth. So much of the page time was an extremely boring, uneventful courtship, I just wish the author had spent more time building up the initial attraction, or even gave Marcus some depth by sharing more of his time in the West Indies, or building a depth of relationship upon their rekindling their relationship or you know, anything else.

This book definitely hasn't left a lasting impression on me. I've already forgotten half of it.

I was able to receive an ARC copy complimentary from netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.