The Virgin and the Rogue by Sophie Jordan
The Rogue Riles #6

I know the cover has been mentioned many times but I just love it! It's so damn sexy. I feel like the hero's pose and those back muscles, just wow. I saw this originally on John Paul's facebook page and was like I NEED IT!!!! When I saw it was Sophie Jordan's book, I was a little hesitant because she's been so hit or miss for me. I have read the first 3 books from this series and I strongly disliked books 1 and 3. But I overall liked book 2. This is book 6 but reads fine as a standalone. The heroine, Charlotte, lives with her sister and her husband, who are the hero and heroine from book 5, so it might be pleasant to read that story at least beforehand but not necessary. (At least that's how I feel with not having read book 5 :)

Now, I'm not going to lie, this book is a little ridiculous. It begins with Charlotte suffering from horrible menstrual cramps and her sister making her a tonic. It sounds like this is a frequent occurrence, but this time her sister experiments a bit with her herbs and makes her an aphrodisiac that turns Charlotte into a sex monster.

What follows is VERY SEXY. Two very hot, explicit scenes (no penetration) all before 40%. I was quite surprised. And while I usually don't love too much of that right away in the story, it worked here. This was a book I wanted to see what happened and I was eager to pick it back up again.

Kingston is a bastard, but is well known by the ladies and even the matchmaking mamas. He's had his fun but something has totally stolen the joy of women from him. He has a long celibate period before the heroine, I always love when that happens with a hero. Kingston is so damn sexy. And I really did like him. But, something happened with the character development in the book for me that I was left with only slightly knowing and caring about both characters. He has pain and we get to witness some of it but something just didn't quite grab my heart about him that it should have.

Charlotte I was left feeling similarly. I enjoyed her overall, but nothing extreme. I was still left feeling I only knew the basics about her, which made me sad because she was discussed so much as being this dowdy, boring lump and I didn't want to leave the book still feeling like she was a dowdy, boring lump. Lol. And she came out a little bit (I mean she came out A LOT sexually, but I wanted more than that.) I loved the sexual side of her finding her confidence but I wanted to see more of this fiery personality underneath.

So the sex was great. The story was overall good. The characters were okay. The emotional side was okay. Overall I really liked it but could have really loved it with a few tweaks. This has turned my opinion of Sophie Jordan to the better though. I have been liking the books from her less and less and this one is probably my second favorite by her.

Thank you net galley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions are my own regarding the story.