4.8

Really enjoyed this book but then again I am supremely biased because so far, I've loved everything that Alissa Johnson has put out so far.

This story follows Connor Brice, a shady charming vulnerable sexy sexy man, and Adelaide, a sensible burdened and slightly whimsical young lady. Boy meets girl through a prison window, falls in love with said girl, evil brother knows this and manages to scheme and plot to force said girl into a position to marry her. Unbeknownest to her, Connor and her brother have a deliciously dangerous game of revenge going on (mostly Connor's doing) and poor Adelaide gets caught up in an interesting situation.

Then she makes the mistake of falling in love with her husband.

OOPS.

I loved the dialogue and the lack of ballrooms (a girl can only take so much and I needed a break). The secondary characters were cool but not entirely memorable: I loved that Isobel grew a bit of a backbone but I was saddened to see her disappear from the story after page 200 or so. I feared that poor Georgie was growing to grow up a very pudgy, diabetic and spoilt child and I wanted to see more of Gregory, Michael and Graham.

Also, I didn't understand why (view spoiler)[ though Adelaide told COnnor that she understood his need for revenge and was not asking him to give it up, she still sulked and didn't go to Edinburgh. Maybe I expected her to be more bloodthirsty even though she had given up her anger, but if I were in her place, I'd want to be there to see it all go down. Also, why Connor decided to give it all up so suddenly didn't ring true. I mean, if he had been an impetous and rash character throughout the book I could've believed it but Connor was a methodical and cunning plotter who had built 15 years around this. It pissed me off that Michael and Gregory carried through with the plot for two reasons: Connor should've done it and two it felt very heavy-handed that Richard got his comeuppance so quickly and outside the realm of the readers purview. (hide spoiler)]

All in all, a pretty damn good book that could've survived a few tweaks to have made it even stronger.