Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: Third person mostly from the hero and heroine, but also some brief perspective time from the hero’s betrothed and a side character’s mother.

Should I read in order?
This is the second book in Maxwell’s A Logical Man’s Guide to Dangerous Women series. I didn’t read book 1 and found it find picking up alone. The characters from book 1 do make an appearance here and have some page time. I’m not sure if either Ned or Gemma are developed in that book.

Basic plot:
After Gemma has lost almost everything, she claims a local tavern from her uncle and starts new in the English countryside. The only thing is, Ned has been using this tavern for his Logical Men’s Society meetings and isn’t ready to give it up.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency time period (1815)
- Country setting
- Working class romance – heroine is the daughter of a wealthy merchant and the hero is a country doctor (and an illegitimate child)
- Both mains are healers
- Small town feel – the town has a strong community and everyone is up in everyone else’s business, as well as caring and loving each other
- Enemies to lovers
- You like love triangle angst – the hero is betrothed to someone else most of the book
- Lower steam – I have this as a 1 but it’s possible I missed a second one towards the end? I listened to audio and don’t take as good of notes in that format. Either way the sex isn’t happening until 85%.

Ages:
- Hero is 27, I didn’t see the heroine mentioned but would guess mid 20s as well

My thoughts:
I really struggled with this one because the hero was SO unlikable in the beginning half of this story!

He is downright rude to women and it’s obvious he has not respect for them. Some of this is excused with his background but not all of it. He’s also unofficially engaged when we walk into this story – and still there at like 90% of the book. I have read quite a few of these recently, love triangles or where one of the mains is engaged to someone else and honestly I don’t love it. I don’t want to read a book where 90% of it is them connected to another love interest. It tends to taint any feelings I get for them together and it just feels wrong. So that was a big downer for me with this book.

Anyway back to the hero. He says things like ‘women are frivolous and cruel’, ‘without the intrusion of women’, and calls them jades and opportunists, and implies they aren’t intelligent. He was just plain unpleasant. I didn’t love him or even like him. I also felt like once the kiss happened (which was rather out of the blue), his total turn around of attraction just felt very instalust. But since it was 70% I ended up just frustrated. It didn’t give me any feels.

BUT the second half of this book did have a bit of a turn around for me and I generally enjoyed it more than the first half. I think many people aren’t as bothered by these things in novels and will enjoy this one! 

<b>Content warnings:</b>

- Death of multiple family members (spouse, parents, friends)
- Death of infant
- Mention of the heroine’s dead husband cheating on her and dying in a duel over another woman
- Heroine was attacked and hit
- Mention of opium addiction
- There is a childbirth scene with some difficulty but works out okay

<b>Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:</b>

69% - kiss
85% - 🔥 kisses, her on top in a carriage
93% - kiss