Verity has had to take care of herself for way too long. Born a bastard with a younger sibling to care for, she has held tenaciously onto her career as a reporter for The Londoner. However, all that is jeopardy only because of her sex. She needs not only a story, but the story that will keep her job, the story all of London wants to hear. Who is the lost Earl?

Taken from his home as a young child, Malcolm has blocked all of his memories of growing up. All he knows is the bowels of London. Having done anything to survive the dirty streets, alone, he has made a name for himself in the sewers. He has no interest in finding out his true past, or being forced back into the peerage.

I did enjoy Verity. I'm not going to lie though, I really don't like characters that are reporters. It's just this personal preference, and probably the stereotypes from movies/books of them invading privacy, being pushy, etc. Verity isn't like that, but it probably kept me from loving her as much as I should have. Shes a great character though. Very caring, gentle with her family and loved ones, but fights tooth and nail for what she believes in. I admired her ever so much in those beginning chapters where I was on the edge of my seat with what would happen. She was very brave.

Yet as the story goes on, I wanted her to be, well...more for Malcolm? Yes she talks to him, makes him feel safe enough to open up about his past, but I just felt like he needed more from her. More emotional attachment? She does quite a few things to him that I don't love and he falls more in love with her but I just didn't feel it as much as I should have.

Malcolm I just LOVED in the first half of the book. The first chapter sets up his kidnapping and it's just heartbreaking. Learning about his life in the sewers, what he's done to survive, witnessing him training his body to the breaking point so he can always be one step ahead of all the danger in his life...I drool for a hero like that. His situation was made all the more real to me because I recently finished the book Dirty Old London and had a much better imagining of what the underworld of London was like.

I was totally engaged the first 25% of the book. I didn't want to put it down. Which says even more for Miss Caldwell's writing because the characters weren't even together for much of it. Great character depth was built here with both of their backgrounds. Then the next 25% I was even more in love. Their scenes together were amazing. I was clearly seeing them, full bodied and detailed. But after that, something started losing me. It was like the characters started fading, losing their color. They were finally in closer proximity but the character growth seemed to stall for me. And I was waiting and waiting for that tension to come back and something to happen between them. And waiting. And waiting. 90% of the book waiting. And then when they finally have sex, it's after the heroine is injured and has a huge goose-egg on her head. Why is it always injured sex? Lol.

Still I enjoyed much of the book. This was my first Christi Caldwell and I will definitely try her again. This is the first book of the new series and is fine read as is. However, I've seen in many reviews that she has built a whole world of characters that appear throughout town. If you've read her prior books, I'm sure some characters will look familiar.

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