Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖 
Feels: 🦋🦋  
Emotional Depth: 💔💔  
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡ 
Romance: 💞💞 
Sensuality: 💋💋 
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥 
Humor: Yes

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and Tartans Book Club )

Should I read in order? 
I am following the chronological order of Montgomery/Taggert series on Deveraux’s website (though many say her publication order will be better as her writing style evolved that way!). This one is okay as a standalone, but I think you would get more enjoyment out of it if you at least read ‘Ring’s story, which is Mountain Laurel. ‘Ring is in this story and it will also give some background on the family. (The other prior books were set back a bit in time and not as relatable to this story line)

Basic plot:
Carrie Montgomery has 7 older brothers and she’s been determined to find her own way despite their meddling. She runs a matchmaking business for mail order brides but when she comes across a picture of a man with this two children, it calls to her and she knows she must go to him. He wants a woman with strength and a farming background that can help him turn his farm around. Carrie has led a pampered life and knows nothing about farming – but she knows she can provide this man what he needs in life despite that.

Give this a try if you want:
- Low steam – theres 1 full scene (short and vague) and a few remembered, alluded to scenes/kisses
- Plenty of outside drama – interfering family members, missing child, past coming back to haunt them, etc
- You love children in the story – Our hero Josh has 2 children and they have lots of sweet page time in the book
- Western America – This one takes place in 1865 (I don’t believe there was mention of the Civil War) - most of the book takes place at a small town out West called Eternity
- Mail order bride trope
- Class difference feel – Josh is quite poor, Carrie comes from money
- I marked this as older hero but I’m not sure how old Josh is – he was married before and has 2 kids, Carrie is 19 so it feels like age gap but I didn’t catch his age

My thoughts:
I know I’ve been pooing on everyone’s Deveraux loving parade with my reading of this series lol. I’M SORRY. This one though, really I thought it was one of the best I’ve read of the series. I still didn’t love it. But I didn’t hate it. 

There was some humor in this story, cuteness and sweetness from the kids. It didn’t have quite the level of craziness some of her other books had so I appreciated that. As usual, I wish a bit more time had been spent on the romance development and the character background of the hero and heroine instead of a lot of outside drama. 

The ending did get a bit bonkers and while it was resolved, I wish it had been a little more...tidy? I’m not sure, maybe an epilogue would have helped, but that might be resolved when reading the other siblings stories.

Deveraux does has a bad habit of including fatfobic remarks in her books (I’ve noted these in a number of them so far) and I saw it a bit here too, including a focus on appearance. These are annoying to me, mainly because I happened to notice them in one of the first books I read by her and now they stand out really bad to me. I can’t unsee it sadly. But, it’s not a large part of the book.

Things like: 
-‘Ring (heroine’s older brother) calling her friends The Ugly Horde and the uglies
-When the heroine meets the hero and he tells her about all the accomplishments his mail order bride will have (plowing skills, raising animals, cooking, shearing sheep, etc), the heroine is only worried about well “Is she pretty?”
-Multiple characters are referred to as ‘fat’ always in a negative way
-Even in the authors notes (which were about another book and I’m not sure why they were included there) it talked about how she didn’t eat or sleep for 3 days and she STILL didn’t lose anyway and I was like ahhhhh I can’t get away from the focus on bodies!!!

But anyway, this one was generally more enjoyable for me. I’d say I liked it the most so far of all the books I’ve tried in the series. 

Content Warnings:

Parental abandonment of children (hero’s ex wife leaves the kids)
Missing child scene – it’s resolved within a chapter
Toxic family members
Heroine’s brother calls her group of friends the “Ugly Horde” and the “uglies”
Some fatfobic comments – fat, overblown, overweight (always used negatively or about someone unlikable)
Feelings of entitlement and ignorance – heroine comes across the hero’s run down house for the first time and thinks 
<i>
Carrie thought it was odd that he could see how appalling the place was yet he hadn’t done anything about it.
</i>
As someone who has been unable to afford things this just sounds so ignorant to me. There’s no money so of course he couldn’t fix the things that needed to be fixed, it’s not like he did it on purpose.

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes – I had the large print version so pages might be weird

Pg 165 – kiss
Pg 192 – kisses
Pg 216 – sex scene (pretty vague, virignity loss for her. I’m assuming missionary and I think they were by a river???)
Pg 224 – brief, remembered scenes
Pg 255 – kiss
(There were a few more one sentences kisses not mentioned because I got lazy)
Total pages 349

Overall: 2.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔  
Sexual Tension: ⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥 - 🔥🔥 
Humor: Not really

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and Tartans Book Club )

Basic plot:
Jennifer and Gordon had a beautiful blooming romance. Jennifer, the daughter of the earl, and Gordon, the gardener’s son, knew their love would survive their differences in class. Until suddenly they were separated without understanding what had happened. It’s 5 years later and they are reunited, trying to understand their feelings and work through their hurt.

Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian time period – 1870
- Majority of the book takes place at the heroine’s highland estate
- Class difference/forbidden love trope
- Childhood friends to lovers trope
- Slow burn/Lower steam – there’s 2 scenes but they are directly after each other so I just counted it was 1

My thoughts:
I loved the narrator for this book – Liam Gerrard. He had a fabulous accent and I actually enjoyed the way he did the women’s voices.

But the story itself I really struggled with. And I will admit I have a harder time with second chance romance. I feel like you walk in on a story already started and miss most of the parts of falling in love that I live for with romance. Here, you don’t get many flashbacks, you just know that the earl’s daughter and the gardener’s boy love each other. 

Forces are trying to keep them apart, and lies are told. Both sides believe them in some ways and leave each other, confused and hurt. Jennifer is abandoned in the highlands for 5 years while Gordon goes to London to make his own way in life. The story picks up when he returns to the highlands upon finding out his father is seriously ill. 

The big reason I struggled with this book was simply that I was bored. There was a lot of internal dialogue with both characters. A LOT. And I just ended up wanting them to talk to each other and interact. I didn’t feel any tension between them and though it was kind of an angsty book with all the longing and wanting on both sides, it just didn’t engage my heart in any way. 

I struggled with how once they are back together and they talk, they just love each other again. It was like, oh this was all a misunderstanding?? I love you! Then the second act of the book, the big destructive secret I won’t mention, well I just thought it was all a bit silly. Being a romance novel, we all know how it would end up, so it just made for a lot of yucky feelings and more of them not talking to each other while we waited for the big reveal that would make it okay.

I was extremely disappointed in Gordon as a hero. He just left Jennifer for 5 years upon hearing something he didn’t like, basically without question and I wasn’t too impressed with them then. But after the big secret happens towards the middle of the book, he just….ignores her??? Hoping she’ll go away and he won’t have to deal with it? Who does that? At this point they were engaged to married so it was just ridiculous for him to act like that and think it would all just ‘go away’, it made no sense.

Jennifer I liked and felt bad for. I think she deserved better than Gordon.

Content Warnings:

Possible incestuous kisses/love
Cancer
Loss of a parent
Toxic family members

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes – I had the audiobook so locations might be weird

3% - remembered kiss
9% - remembered kisses
26% - kisses
31% - kisses
92% - kisses, oral for her, first sex scene, followed by another
100% - kiss

 Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: Yes, a bit

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and Tartans Book Club )

Should I read in order?
I think it’s worthwhile to read the prequel novella titled The Ice Duchess. There’s some character overlap in the books and it shows how the heroine started The Duchess Society.

Basic plot
Working within the organization The Duchess Society, Lady Hildegard helps women of marriageable age navigate into proper relationships while protecting what rights they can. While investigating Tobias Streeter for a client, she finds she’s miscalculated quite a bit regarding him...

Give this a try if you want:
- Late Regency time period - 1822
- Matchmaking trope – while Hildie isn’t really a matchmaker – she’s trying to get Tobias up to snuff for his fiance and society’s strict standards.
- Hero – tattooed, ex-soldier, architect
- Heroine – working woman, nurses hero back to health
- Forbidden love/class difference trope feel
- Medium steam – 2 scenes and steamy kisses

My thoughts:
There was so much I loved about this story, I’m unsure where to start.

Tobias Streeter is my catnip hero. I cannot get enough of these heroes that have struggled in life, and made something of themselves. He’s created a successful shipping company from nothing. Perhaps gets his hands a touch dirty (that smuggling always mentioned with a quirked eyebrow). The ton tries to turn their backs on him due to his Romani blood, but he’s determined to get what he wants out of life – to be a recognized architect. Labeled The Rogue King, I was already half in love with him by his initial introduction.

Then he meets Hildie, and I just continue to swoon. Known as The Mad Matchmaker, he’s in love with her dimples. Hes imagining kissing them. He’s sniffing her bonnet she left in his office, like the first real breath he’s taken. He’s playing my romance heart strings like a fiddle and I’m not even 20% in. He’s rescuing street urchins and pregnant cats named Nick and I am utterly lost to him. Completely. Irrevocably. Lost.

Both of our main characters have such wonderful depth. Tracy gives her characters passion for each other, but also passion for life. I can feel their drive for their work and how much they care about what they do.

Hildie was a wonderful heroine. Sweet and strong, she lives with her aging staff, including her deaf maid, she has a lot on her shoulders but doesn’t let it get her down. She’s a heroine I’m left thinking I would love to be friends with.

I’d also like to note a kudos to Sumner for normalizing LGBTIQA+ interactions. In the prequel novel I love that two lords busted in the room together for a quick tryst, and in this novel Tobias’ fiance isn’t interested in men. Thank you!

Some parts I loved:

Umm yes please!

Tobias Streeter, the Rogue King of Limehouse Basin, was patiently waiting for her to decide. Hildy felt aroused by the control, seduced by the options.
Something fiendish flickered in his eyes. A lock of hair fell forward, brushing his cheekbone. How had she thought him austere? He seemed vulnerable and heartbreakingly young beneath armor constructed to protect him.
“A dangerous game you’re playing, Hildy girl, when I rarely back down.”
A long moment passed. Words crowded her throat, melted on her tongue. Thought melted into sensation along with them. She was lightheaded, drunk on his nearness and the thrill of touching him.
Then he answered her plea, kicking the table aside. Pulling her to her feet, against his hard body. She caught her breath, but it only filled her with his scent. Her heart pounded, and the air lit with desire. His, hers. Eagerness and need.


Could I melt anymore? Oh, I can!

Tobias blinked, stunned by her honesty, her courage, her strength. Stunned by the way her words sliced his heart open and let feeling trickle out. “This is how a ruffian makes love to his woman,” he whispered savagely and seized her mouth beneath his. Turning them, he guided her three paces until he had her backed against the door. Then, drawing her arms up and around his neck, he slithered his hands down her sides to cup her hips and pull her into him. Stepping between her legs with bold ownership. Letting know what she’d done to him – hardened his body to the point of pleasure and pain.

Melts*

He was dressed as casually as she’d ever see him. Untucked shirt fluttering at his hip, unbuttoned halfway down his chest. No cravat. Sleeves rolled high on his forearm. Graphite pencil tucked appealingly behind his ear. Hair disheveled as if he’d run his fingers through it moments before.

Content Warnings:

Brief mentions of Tobias’ time in the war with India/PTSD
Mentions/remembrances of child labor/abuse/poverty
Brief scene of anxiety/PTSD for heroine

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

34% - kisses
55% 🔥 - kisses, oral for her
64% 🔥 - kisses, missionary scene (virginity loss for her), followed by mention of a second scene of her on top
72% - the beginnings of another scene that fades to black
80% - brief mention of an against the wall scene (I want it!)\
90% - kiss 

 I had this one as a 2 steam but don't have notes for it.

I ended up loving this one too though I struggled with it a bit. I understand having only Damen's perspective but damn it got so hard to try to guess what was going through Laurent's mind and he's so closed off it's impossible to guess. But that makes it so much more rewarding when he does open up and share a bit with Damen.

This book was a bit stressful, with the various details revealed, behind enemy lines plots and general war, as well as two rival armies working together for a common cause. Still, I tore through the book and found it such an addicting read.

This is a story that will stay with me for a long time and I think it was the perfect change for me - I read almost exclusively historical and this was different enough but similar enough that it refreshed me. 

 I LOVED this one! Captive Prince (book 1) was a bit slow and hard to read in some parts (It has a lot of heavy stuff and not much positive for me, but I was still super intrigued). This book I felt was where the relationship development really blossomed. I'd call it road trip feel but...well it's war and one is a slave so that just doesn't feel right. Still, they were together the entire story, really getting to know each other better, sharing more of themselves and it was so rewarding as a reader to be a part of that.

There is 1 pretty developed sex scene (Pacat isn't the most explicit when it comes to sex, but it was still explicit enough) that really just wrapped my heart up. 

 Went into this with my eyes closed - no idea what the expect but I had an idea it was m/m that was it!

I got this rec asking for something that would break my heart. And it did a bit. Being book 1 of the trilogy, this one was establishing the scene, the background, the setting.

No steam between the main characters in this one yet (slow burn here!)

Content warning:

Scenes of torture, flogging, rape, abuse, violence, murder, branding, forced oral sex on one of the heroes (rape).

I have books 2 and 3 but am going to read something in between before coming back to it.

Seems like people love or hate it - I’m left…intrigued? I want more. Can’t make a full judgement on the story yet I think. 

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A bit, yes

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and the Tartans facebook group )

Basic plot
This book is based on the real person Bess Hardwick. It follows her throughout her 4 marriages and life that lead her to Queen Elizabeth I’s court. Not a traditional romance, though it does read like one and has a HEA (As long as you don’t know the real history :P )

Give this a try if you want:
- Plenty of open door sex scenes – I’d count about 8 as flames and there’s some additional scenes I didn’t count (fade to black, shorter, not resulting in satisfaction, etc)
- You want a rags to riches story – our heroine Bess starts as basically a farmers daughter and ends up in the Elizabethan court, a countess, and wealthy
- You are okay with a few content warnings including some dubcon kisses (all sex is consensual), underage marriage (she marries her first husband very young), death of multiple husbands on page, imprisonment, levels of infidelity, and jealous husbands
- Story begins in 1533 and goes through 1570

Tropes:
- Masquerade, house party, older hero, children in the story, class differences, rags to riches

My thoughts:
I don’t know if I would have gotten this book from the library if I would have known what it was about. It’s one of the reasons I have put of Bertrice Small is knowing that some of the books follow the heroines arc with multiple men and HEAs instead of being a traditional romance of one main couple. But I got it blindly and just dove in. And there was something about this book that I enjoyed and I found myself eager to read it and didn’t want to put it down. This was a long book at around 500 pages of large hardback writing and I think it only took me 2 days to read it.

This led me down a research rabbit hole as I didn’t know anything about Bess Hardwick. Of course the real history ending to her romances is sad, but the book leaves off on a HEA.

So overall I found this book fun, the time change to Elizabethan times was needed because I’ve been living in Regency London for quite awhile. I really enjoyed Bess’s character and she had fabulous depth as the story is told from her perspective (there might be a few scenes from other people but it’s minimal). It had the heat in the bedroom Henley knows how to bring. Overall I’m really happy to have read it! It was my favorite by Henley so far.

Content Warnings

Brief mention of gypsy
Thoughts of adultery
Virgin on a pedestal thoughts from men
Dubcon kisses
Gifts of animal fur
Imprisonment
Death of husbands on page
Underage marriages

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Pg 90 – first sexual experience with Barlow – he has one, she doesn’t, there’s no penetration (more like dry humping)
Pg 121 – kisses with Cavendish
Pg 151 – kisses and breast touches with Cavendish
Pg 155 – 🔥 fingering o with Cavendish
Pg 160 - 🔥  oral for her with Cavendish
Pg 183 – kisses and touches with Cavendish
Pg 203 – 🔥 missionary sex with Cavendish
Pg 231 - 🔥  her on top Cavendish
Pg 305 – kisses with Talbot
Pg 316 – missionary with William St. Loe (she doesn’t orgasm and it’s a bit disappointing)
Pg 322 – 🔥 hand job for St. Loe followed by missionary sex and instruction for him that she has a clitoris
Pg 332 – attempted sex but St. Loe is having erection issues
Pg 350 – 🔥 Shewsbury comes to the tower and fucks her against a wall
Pg 377 – kisses with Shrewsbury
Pg 407 - 🔥 fingering for her, missionary sex with Shrewsbury, oral for her 
Pg 419 – fade to black with Shrewsbury
Pg 435 – fade to black sex after a bath with Shrewsbury
Pg 438 - 🔥  from behind sex with Shrewsbury
I don’t have total pages but it was around 500

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖 
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋  
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡ 
Romance: 💞💞 
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥 
Humor: Yes

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and the Tartans facebook group)

Basic plot:
Isabelle Rochon is interested in British history and is currently working her tail off to get a promotion at the museum. While attending a ball, she wishes she could truly be in the year 1834 and thanks to her magic artifact, her wish is granted. Here she meets Lord Montagu, who has secrets of his own.

Give this a try if you want:
- Fake relationship – the hero needs access to certain social circles that will be more open to him is he were thought to be married soon
- A touch of heroine nurses hero back to health (no death bed scenes, the injury is somewhat minor)
- Secret identity – the hero doesn’t know who the heroine truly is until almost the end of the book
- Time travel – contemporary heroine travels back to 1800s England
- Majority of the book takes place in 1834
- Some fun history tidbits including technology of the time and Ada Lovelace
- Medium steam – 2 open door scenes that are towards the end and some kisses

My thoughts:
I really wanted to like this book! I did. And I think I could have with a few tweaks. 

In this book I definitely wanted more hero and heroine interaction. There was a lot of time with the heroine spent by herself or with Ava Lovelace (Lord Byron’s child – if you are interested in her as a character I’m sure you will enjoy this book more). There wasn’t a lot of time in the hero’s head. I just wanted them together more, talking more. I felt like neither of their character depth was super deep.

The hero was so fascinated by the heroine and kept saying how wowed he was by her intelligence but I didn’t understand that. Yeah, I’m sure she’s a smart heroine, but most of their interactions up to those points had been her basically being super weird and awkward and talking in her modern mannerisms that he didn’t understand because he had no idea she was from the future. We were told she was smart and that’s one of the reasons he loves her but I didn’t see it. I don’t know why he loved her. And I wanted so badly to feel that love here.

When they were together it was really amazing. I just wanted more.

A few specifics

I also struggled with a few things that just personally gave me anxiety. Yes I know this is fiction :P But how she kept slipping things from the future to a real person of history?? She had a cell phone, she used it around characters, she told them about things that would be invented, I was like oh GOD STOP IT. NO! But in the end I did enjoy the epilogue and how the author ‘messed up’ history for an alternate timeline. I liked that. 

I wasn’t in love with the whole hero doing investigations plotline – I didn’t think it was really developed enough for me to care about it really. He was always gone and doing these things but we didn’t know what they were or the background until the very end. Instead we were with the heroine while she was doing errands in book stores and disrupting the history timeline. 

The very end was a little meh.

The heroine MUST go back to her time because of her job! Her job is the most important thing ever. More important than love or happiness. Can you tell she’s American and has been traumatized by her employers in the past? So she goes back and immediately realizes she was wrong? All she does and cry and just….goes back again. How the hell does this calling card case work anyway??? We never really find out.

Overall there was something about this author and book that I do want to try another. I feel like I could really love her though this one was a bit of a flop for me. So I’ll definitely try the next in the series at some point.

Content Warnings:

Not really much to note here:
Some scenes of violence/injury
Hero is kidnapped

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Pg 107 – just a wrist kiss (I love them!)
Pg 142 – kiss
Pg 174 – kiss
Pg 194 🔥 – kisses, breast play, missionary sex
Pg 257 🔥 – kisses and hot, quick, carriage sex
Pg 285 – kiss and then a return from an alluded to scene
Total pages 291