Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Intimate Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): 🔥
Humor: Yes! I found the humor quite delightful in this one.
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
Percentage which mains are first on page together: 1%
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: No

Should I read in order?
You may want to. I didn’t and I found this one fine as a stand alone but the group of friends is established and there’s quite a few mentions of prior events.

Basic plot:
After Diana challenges Jeremy that he will marry by the end of the year, they attend a house party where he proposes a new bargain.

Give this a try if you want:
- Regency (1817)
- London/house party
- childhood friends to lovers
- widow heroine
- unrequited love (might be a bit of a stretch – more like a light crush?)
- artist heroine
- heroine paints the hero
- fun banter
- LGBT positive
- emotionally strong hero (hero cries)
- wager – heroine wagers that the hero will be married within a year
- lower steam – I have it as 1 open door scene but I could have missed something?

Ages:
- I think the heroine is 23, I want to say the hero is late 20s?

My thoughts:
I really, really loved Waters writing style. I found it such a joy to fall into. I loved her bright characters, her dialogue and her humor so much!

Overall I think this would have been such a favorite if there was more steam. I think I was expecting more with the whole plot line being all ‘am I a bad lover?” and I really wanted more from the bedroom scenes in this one. I went back through my notes and I only see one (I guess I could have missed one??) but either way, it was way more of a slow burn and lighter than you would think with this plot.

Jeremy I found to be kind of a unique hero. I rather loved how he wasn’t as legendary in bed as he thought and Diana helps him along with that. I really enjoyed all the characters here.

I think I would try more by this author just because I loved her writing style so much. I’m not sure if all of her books are on the light side – at least I’ll be more prepared for the next one if that’s the case :)

Diana, the widowed Lady Templeton, and Jeremy, the Marquess of Willingham often argue and flirt in ton society. One evening a wager is made that Willingham will marry before the end of the season. At a house party in the country, a counter-proposal occurs. Willingham’s latest mistress criticized his skills in the bed chamber so he proposes a brief affair with Diana to help him gain confidence and stir gossip that Diana is ready to take a lover. However, will their affair help or hurt the wager?

While I’ve liked Diana, and Willingham, in the other books of the series, I didn’t love their story. Their book had too much going on with both plot points and side characters who have storylines then disappear. It seemed a bit rushed overall.

⭐️⭐️💫/5

THE BANTER!

i love this series for the banter alone. this enemies to friends to lovers story was so great! i loved diana and jeremy. you can tell from the very beginning that they're not really enemies so much as two people who love to needle each other and can easily get under each other's skin. when they finally admit their feelings, it's glorious!

i think this one resolved way too quickly and simply. and i definitely didn't like it as much as the first because there was never really that angst and tension. but this was still so great! i know i'm going to continue to love this series and can't wait to jump into book 3!

3.5
I didn't realize that A, this is the second in a series and B, that this was a regency romance, so I was surprised to enjoy this cheeky, entertaining sexy romance!
I loved the cover and yes, covers do sell!!!
Great for a quick and easy read.

I think I read too many of these types of books before I read this one, Nothing really stood out but it was a fun read!

3.5 Stars - I've been meaning to read this for a few years and Diana and Jeremy were quite the entertaining couple for their time period. They'd actually known each other since they were young and had an interesting relationship(if you want to call it that). These two were like a magnet that would bring them together at events but they were not known for being a loving couple. Oh no...these two liked to bicker and with the dual POV's we were able to see how each thought of the other. Personally I was a bigger fan of Jeremy who'd inherited his title after his older brother died and was trying to better his estate. Diana was a strong heroine too but wasn't as likable as Jeremy. It was fun reading through some of the incidents with these two though. There's even one point where he thinks "...she sounded less insulted by the prospect of being his mistress than by that of being his wife..."

She had been a widow for a few years and enjoying single life being solely reliant on herself. Meanwhile he's enjoying bachelorhood and as you can see from the back of the book, they make a wager after an argument which Jeremy then counters with another proposal. They'll have a brief affair and she'll help him in the bedroom. In turn after their affair ends it will look like she's discreetly in the market for someone new.

Sounds simple enough but as they meet at a house party, we find that things don't progress as smoothly. Diana's ultimate goal is to get him married within the year and looks for prospects at the party. There's other characters in this book and after looking up this author, some have their own stories in this series(no, it's not necessary to read them in order). The antics between everyone gave this story more fuel in the second half which I found helped pick up the pace. The first half doesn't have much in the romance sense but then we wouldn't expect it to with the wager. Things progress though with them and you wonder if one of them will finally give in. This book isn't filled with any deep drama but there was quite a bit of banter that kept you reading. What I also liked about this book which is different than many is that Jeremy seemed more in touch with this feelings than she did which doesn't happen often.

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for the ARC copy which I should've reviewed sooner but life got in the way.

This is a fun series. If you loved the first, I highly recommend you continue. These are fun, sweet, quick romance novels. If you enjoy sinking into a series, this is a good one. The novels stand alone, but I do think it helps to read them in order.

I loved this book.
I've read all of Martha Waters's books in this series, and To Love and to Loathe is my favorite. I've reread this book several times and hope she has another. I felt the love story was realistic and had a natural progression that wasn't forced. I hope her future books have a funny, spunky heroine and charming love interest.

• I am working diligently to catch up on my NetGalley reads. I actually started reading this book quite a while ago, but I put it down at one point and never came back until last week.

• I’ll start by saying that I didn’t know this was the second book in a series, but it reads as a standalone in my opinion.

• I’m sad to say that I didn’t love this book. It isn’t bad, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. The entire premise seemed extremely unlikely and so much of the drama was contrived and unrealistic. I simply didn’t engage with the story.

Thank you @NetGalley and Atria Books for an eARC of this book, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Unfortunately, this didn't really work for me. While in theory, this book had all the ingredients to be right up my alley; in practice, it bothered me to no end.

I think the main issue for me here was the main character. The author tried to make Diana an Elizabeth Bennet type. But while Lizzie might be strong-headed, independent, and stubborn, she is also compassionate. Which Diana clearly lacked. Not only does she push women onto Jeremy when he clearly has no interest in them, but she also outed a queer character, for no reason at all. I just couldn't get behind Diana. I struggled to understand what went on in her head and what her motives were for all the scheming she did. That made it really hard for me to root for our main couple.

I also got bored toward the end. The first half of the book was fine, but the events got so dragged out that I couldn't enjoy them anymore past the halfway point. I don't know why the characters kept making it so hard on themselves!

So unfortunately, this book wasn't for me.

To Love and to Loathe had a steady pace a good plot, and the banter between our leads was just the right amount of witty. However, everyone lacked that bit of spark to set them apart and make them rememberable. Listening to the audiobook, I had a difficult time distinguishing who was speaking at times and keeping all of the relationships straight. The make narrator also had such a snobby tone and nasally voice that it was a struggle to keep going. In the end, it was a nice story, but one that suffers due to easily forgettable characters.

What are your favorite flowers this time of year? I love anything colorful in the gloom of winter.

Diana, Lady Templeton is a widow and loves to match wits with a known rake, Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham. They make a wager of 100 pounds that Jeremy will marry within the year. As Diana is his good friend that he trusts, Jeremy also goes to her with a troublesome problem that his latest paramour criticized him in the bedroom. Will she be able to help him out with his technique? Diana thinks that if she takes Jeremy up on his offer, this will only help her win the bet. At a house party, things go awry as the try to both win their side of the bet.

This book is very steamy. I loved the witty banter. It had me laughing out loud in several spots. I love a good Regency house party and this book was a lot of fun. I loved how Diana was a strong willed and independent woman and I also love how Jeremy and Diana could talk honestly to each other.

Joel Froomkin and Anais Inara Chase took turns as narrators for the chapters narrated by Diana or Jeremy. They were fun narrators, and I enjoyed their characters. Froomkin in particular had a charming aristocratic drawl that I found to be quite delightful.

This is the second novel in the Regency Vows series. I’ve read books 1 and 3. I thought I should get book 2 read before the new book 4 comes out!

Even though, I had a chance to read this before it came out, I did not get to actually read it until recently. To be honest, the first few chapters were hard to get into it. I found myself not relating to any of the characters, therefore, not really caring where the storyline went. Did not finish it.

DNF at 25%

This was my first historical romance and I've come to the quick conclusion I just don't think they're for me. I did not like the lingo and there were too many characters that I struggled to keep straight. I feel like I would've enjoyed this "trope"/storyline if it hadn't been a historical romance because I love a good ~enemies to lovers~ (which I'm assuming this is, I didn't get that far lol), but the style of writing just did not work for me.

** DNFing at 57%

This book should have checked all my boxes according to the description. A silly regency romcom and snarky banter with a wager about will he or won't he get married.

And in the first 25% of the book I was quite enjoying myself. But then came the agreement regarding Diana's quest to take a lover and Jeremy's need for someone to reaffirm his bedroom skills. And it felt really blegh. There was too much longing and too many interruptions. I read somewhere that this was also tagged as a clean romance but there is so much talk about sex in the second quarter that it was just exhausting. Like it makes sense from the description for there to be some smut especially soon after the pact is made but it's not there and instead I was just annoyed and bored after that.

People are praising this book but I found it pretty insufferable and have been sitting at 57% for about two weeks now unable to continue so I call it here and give up.

Martha Waters is a beautiful writer who fits perfectly into the community of regency romance authors. This book is journey of true love, friendship, and genuine humor. As someone who is still relatively new to historical romance novels, this is a wonderful introduction to the genre and proves that love (and sex, and humor) is timeless.

I adore regency romances and this author, but felt that the attempts to round out the surrounding characters at times took away from the main story.

A sweet and fun historical romcom. I really enjoyed this one and I do recommend it to fans of this genre.

This was a cute read but a little slow at times. It was fun to see the banter and I love historical romance but this wasn’t the strongest one I’ve read.

Thank you for this arc copy of To Love and to Loathe. It wasn't; my type of book but others may like it. I did enjoy the cover picture though.