This series is about a group of girls that all went to the same finishing school due to misbehavior. They make an oath to remain single until they find true love. I haven't read book 1, and I definitely think it should be read prior to this one. I rather felt like I had jumped into the middle of a story by just starting book 2. Faith and Nicholas already are engaged and somewhat estranged due to Nicholas' anger over her spying on him trying to find if he's a worthwhile husband.

Nicholas is trying to come to terms with the fact that his fiance doesn't trust him and is allowing her to break off the engagement. Faith is hesitant to do so, however, and she only wanted to find out if he was a decent man. The book picks up with them still dancing around each other, trying to get to know each other better.

Give this book a try if you are in the mood for
A spy hero
Lighter steam – there are open door kisses and sex but it's very short and not very descriptive
Darker themes – on page scenes of torture, threats, talk of death
A bit of an arranged marriage – it was put together by Faith's mother, who also wrote letters to Nicholas, though he thought many were from Faith herself.
Full figured heroine – there's some talk about her curves and how she loves food

This book surprised me a bit. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't the level of violence that is here. And that's not a turn off for me, but I'm going to get pure violence I need gritty, mind blowing sex. That wasn't here. The sex is quite short, not as descriptive as I like. There's a lot of danger and plot points about the hero being a spy. That combined with walking into the story half started (or at least that's how I felt) left me feeling lackluster about this book. I think you will like it more if you read book 1 in the series first, so I definitely recommend that.

I will say a big kudos to the author for including some diverse characters in the story. I found Geb Arafa absolutely fascinating and may possibly read his story if it's coming up in the series.

Thanks NetGalley for the arc. All thoughts and opinions regarding this story are completely my own.