Regina is a dutiful daughter. She has known forever that she will marry for the convenience of her parents. She is disappointed in their choice however, and finds the nerve to run away the morning of her wedding.

The Scoundrel of St. Giles is well known for his dastardly deeds, even by sweet and innocent Regina. Yet, he provides her safety, food, comfort and isn't at all the villain she thought he was. But Regina doesn't know Carlton's past and why he is so determined to keep her with him.

I haven't read any of the other books in the series, but it was fine as a stand alone. But I have read that Carlton is found in other stories in the series, and the series seems to be well loved, so perhaps start at the beginning for the full effect.

This book has such high reviews from all of my goodread friends. I think I just had bad luck with this book. There was something about it that did not pull it together for me. I have so many questions and complains and am just left asking, “Why?”. Why was this happening? Why was that happening? WHY are they falling in love? I don't know. But it happened. And it's not a bad book at all, it was just missing something for me. And there was a lot of action and chaos going on, which is not something I love. But you might! So, everyone else give it a try.

My favorite part of this book was that he had a mustache, which I think are hideous, and the heroine thinks it's hideous. Lol. Is that random?? Just kidding, there were a lot of really cute scenes in this book, and the hero's love is powerful for the heroine. I think truly one of my favorite parts was when he found out she'd never had cake and makes sure to get her one to try.

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

What follows are SERIOUS SPOILERS and my random questions, thoughts and wonderings.
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Spoiler

Firstly, I'd like to address the reason she had to run away from her wedding. Her betrothed was a 14 year old boy with some degenerative disease that affected his muscles. Okay, I get it, she's 18 and she doesn't want to marry a child. But he was SO NICE. And I felt SO BAD for him. I was actually hoping this was the hero and they had some kind of separation and then came back together when he was older. But she was so devastated thinking he couldn't ride horses with her or play hide and seek with their imaginary kids. I just thought it was ridiculously shallow and stupid reasons. I'm not mad at her for running away but I wish it was done a bit different. I want Stokes to have his own story. He deserves love oh so much.

I also didn't like how the names for people changed. They were all the 'right' names but it was annoying me. Like the brother was sometimes called Marcus then he was called Viscount Seabrook and I was like who the f is Viscount Seabrook lol. And Guthrie is Guthrie half the time and Carlton half the time.

So, Regina runs away and just runs into the Scoundrel of St. Giles and decides he's the perfect man to stay with. Ummm okay. She's so naive it hurts. And immediately they are so attracted to each other but I don't feel it. I don't get why? Like what drew them together. I guess the physical attraction but it didn't have the feels of that.

So Carlton has a huge plan of revenge. He wants to hurt Regina's father so he keeps her close and sends her father threatening notes about compromising her.

There's a scene where Regina starts rearranging furniture in his room and rooting through all of his stuff. Pulling everything out his drawers and putting everything on the bed and that scene was just so weird and annoying to me. They barely knew each other, well I guess that's why she wanted to root through everything, but I was so annoyed with her for that. And then she was all like chewing on her lip, oh why are you mad?

Regina decides she wants Guthrie so she has the brothel owner give her a training. But it doesn't come to anything in the book and I was a little sad about that. I was wanting a little more from her sexual curiosity.

Patrick. He's one of Gurthie's cronies and has worked for him forever proving his worth and trust. But for no apparent reason, both Guthrie and Regina get the heebie jeebies from him. He kidnaps her and other women and sells them to be raped and hurt and who knows what else. He does this because he knew he would always be the one not in command. The way the scene was done it was just so...lame. Like Guthrie was like “Why'd ye do this?” and Patrick was like “It seemed like a good way to get ahead” It just seemed so lackluster of a response to someone who literally stole your woman and knew she'd be raped and hurt. He does intend to kill him after their discussion but Regina stops him to save his soul. Maybe I read too much Kerrigan Byrne, but he deserved to die. There were children as young as 8 years old kidnapped for this endeavor. I have no remorse for the criminals.

Then the end just dissolved into chaos with revenge plots being revealed, murders being spoken of and charged, etc. The relationship was lost to me.