I might come back and change this to a 4-star review after I've ruminated a bit. I thought I was going to hate this book at the beginning, but I stuck with it because I really love the author. By about page 150 I was fully on board. Around page 175 I loved it more than pretty much any romance I've read all year. Somewhere towards the end it tapered back off and I decided I just liked it.

The conflict and tension between the hero and heroine were so very well done, and I think Violet is my favorite of Julie Anne Long's heroines so far. But there were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way, and the hero was just too "alpha male" for me at times even with the author's admirable efforts to soften him up.

I don't know. It's a really well-crafted book with phenomenal tension (really, as someone who enjoys drawn-out sexual/emotional tension in her romance I cannot emphasize how great it was) that just happened to hit a few of my romance pet peeves.