*Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for this A/DRC.*

I am a sucker for a mystery in a romance novel.

Callum MacCreath, now Laird Geiry, returns to Scotland 10 years after he left and just months after realizing his older brother has been dead for over a year. The love of his life is now a widow. Returning to find out how his bother died, because it wasn't a drowning like the paper said. He hopes maybe he could win over the girl he loved but too late in asking for her hand in marriage before his brother did ten years ago. Figuring out who is murdering people, including Lady Geiry Rebecca Sanderson-MacCreath's father shortly after her husband's death.

Vengence. Romance. A wolf who protects her pack. HEA. It's a good story.

If I had to nitpick a complaint, it would be more Hero-Centric than Heroine-Centric.

For some reason, I related to these stories while at the same time I do not - that is a feat in itself. Lara Williams' voice is present, clear and current in this present twenty-something generation. She captures of life of a twenty-something female in the late teen years of the twenty-first century well.

My luck with reading short stories is a game of chance to enjoy, and I enjoyed hers.

Critical Theory is looking at current culture/history and challenging the conventional perceptions, the official view of culture/history. The philosophers at the Frankfurt School surprised and critical for the lack of socialism in Germany, and shocked when Nazism and Hitler rose to power. They wanted to figure out why a whole nation allowed it to happen. After all them Germany at the beginning of the World War II. Then shifted to culture. Using the theories of Hegel and Marx with the lense of society, the Frankfurt School brought critical thought to modern civilization turning culture into something to look at and see if in fact if culture is helping or harming democracy.

There were three stories I liked in this collection: The Husband Stitch, Inventory and Especially Heinous (SVU episode synopses that get weirder and weirder-er but feels entirely reasonable). The rest of the stories just didn't click with me.

It is worth just reading Especially Heinous, which is why I gave this so many stars.

Barely 3 stars.

So glad I borrowed from the library than bought it.

Nothing new, because whatever "new parts" were written about and discussed at length before it was published. Also, it just confirms everything that most people were already thinking about the Administration.

These sentences on page 242 sum up about Trump: "... Donald Trump believed he had vastly more power, authority, and control than in fact he had, and he believed his talent for manipulating people and being and dominating them was vastly greater than it was. Pushing this line of reasoning just a little further: senior staff believed the president had a problem with reality, and reality was now overwhelming him."

I also don't think Wolff knows what "joire de guerre" actually means.

I know that other reviews have stated that if this was the first book, they wouldn't continue the series. I concur. While I enjoyed the sisters epic adventures in the Ton in the other books in the series, I felt that the brother's - the Duke - story is a story of love at first sight and convenient but not really any of the drama a romance reader wants.

I enjoyed this romance. Just enough mystery that lurked in the background but didn't overtake the path to HEA only a few bumps. Enough banter and wit between the heroine and hero. Secondary characters were well-developed, and I can see their own stories later on in the series. I recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Amberjack Publishing for an ARC.