I was super excited to read this book, seeing as everyone loved this book, and I love Jennifer Ashley/Allyson James. I was not disappointed. This has one of the best storylines I've ever read. I won't summarize since so many people have reviewed and/or summarized, but can I just say "Wow."

Lord Ian Mackenzie is the youngest of 4 brothers and he has a slight disability. He doesn't understand emotion. For example, he can play a piano piece perfectly after only having heard it once, but he can't feel the emotion behind it. Or he knows that one applauds after a show, or at the opera, but he doesn't get why. Lord Ian is intelligent, highly so..a genius with numbers and odds, so an acquaintance of his asks his opinion on his bride-to-be. Lord Ian has her investigated, and he feels Beth is too good for the likes of Mather. so not only does he tell her, he proposes. it was a great scene. Fantastic, and this whole book was above and beyond my expectations.

Beth, however, decides Ian can't possibly be serious, and goes off to Paris. Well Lord Ian follows. But not before having a few scandalous episodes that Beth spots in the London Post society section. Lord Ian harbors a couple big secrets, really big ones, and not only is the Inspector way off in his deluded case of "justice," but so is everyone else's opinions. One secret (and not a "spoiler" secret)is that his father killed his mother in front of him in a fit of rage, and at 12, he had Ian committed. Ian was never mad, but he was different. And he was so worked up that at the sanity hearing (mind you he was 12 and had just watched his father shake his mother to death!) he could only rock and repeat the same phrase from a poem over and over to calm himself. So of course, he is committed. Luckily his brother gets him out after their father dies, but Ian had been locked up for something like 10 years or so (I forget the actual number). The electro shock therapy, the cold ice baths, the beatings, all of it, had taken it's toll, and yet Ian remained a remarkable man. He has rages, like when he sees the vengeance-driven Inspector Fellows talking to Beth, but he really is afraid he'll rage against Beth.

The romance between the two is fabulous, as is the passion. I like how Beth's husband (her first husband) was a good man, and she was able to still love him, but be passionately in love with Ian as well. I loved the Mackenzie clan. even Isabella, Mac's estranged wife. We see her when Beth goes to Paris. And just as we think Ian is in front of Beth, it turns out to be one of his brothers, Mac Mackenzie. Mac is keeping tabs on his wife. Their story is next, and also fabulous!!
The only thing I didn't like about this book was Inspector Fellows. The surprise twist at the end was good, and well played, but I couldn't muster enough emotion for Fellows after the way he had harangued Ian and Beth.

(I meant this review to be short...ha!)

I loved how Beth was able to hold her own with Hart...he was such a jerk to her, and yet she was able to make Ian laugh...that was a miracle in and of itself since he usually didn't understand humor. At the end, Ian still couldn't understand a lot of jokes, or follow a conversation with more than one or two people, but he'd gotten better at making eye contact, and he fell in love with Beth...there is a side story of a murder from 5 years before (hence Inspector Fellows' obsession with bringing Ian down) and then a similar murder right after Ian and Beth met. But anyways, I tell you this so you understand when I say that Beth is injured in her quest to clear Ian, and Ian finally understands that without Beth he has nothing, and feels nothing. It was simply amazing to watch his transformation and his and Beth's romance. When he tells her he loves her, and it becomes "Iloveyou.loveyou.loveyou.loveyou." It was beautiful.

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK.

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