I received a free copy of this from NetGalley for preview and this is my freely given opinion.

This is the third book in Vanessa Riley's Rogues and Remarkable Women series. I rather feel that I read the other two books, to lead up to this one, as Lord Gantry, his spy and military history, and his search for his missing wife were interwoven in the stories of the previous two books. As such, I had quite a bit of sympathy for his character leading up to this, since there were allusions to his distractions, distress, and regrets over losing his wife and his search for her.

Vanessa Riley has an interesting writing style from what I am used to and it took me a bit to get into it. In this series, she frequently went back and forth from the perspectives of the two main characters and not only spoke from their points of view, but gave a voice to their inner feelings, thoughts, and fears. There is a lot of vulnerability exposed, at least to the reader, of the characters. But this is not necessarily seen by the other characters. It took a bit of getting used to, how it was written, and I was not sure that I liked it so much in the first two books. But it worked well here because this story was a bit different from the first two.

Lord Felton Lance met Cecilia (Cilia) on the night of a failed mission on Demerara, when he was acting as a spy for Britain, tracking a smuggling operation. Unfortunately one of his colleagues was killed. He meets Cilia, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, by chance while she is out walking, and she saves him from Dutch soldiers by pretending they were meeting outside of a social assembly for a walk. They hit it off and decide on a marriage of convenience. He brings her back to England to live with his family. He spends time with her, but is frequently away on missions, which he doesn't really tell her the purpose of - afterall, he is a spy. But because of his absences, and neglect in establishing her status with his family, she is neglected not just by him, but disregarded by members of his household and family. His sister undermines her status as his wife, and treats her terribly. Cilia seeks to express herself in her art, but for some reason hides her art from Gantry, only showing and involving him in silly things that she does when he is around so he is unaware of her talent and the meaning of her art. The only people who knows what her true art is her step children and her father in law, the Duke of Tramel. Her father in law becomes a pivotal figure because of his complex relationship with his son, and his role as confidante and mentor to Cilia.

As time goes on, she loses contact with her family; her father passes, and she loses contact with her older sister, who had married and also moved to England, and her remaining younger sister was still on Demarara. She and Gantry also start to fall apart, as she is lonely and frustrated, and he keeps going away for long periods, and breaking promises to her because of his missions. Then something happens that causes him to make a terrible accusation of her, and she decides that she has had enough and leaves. He realizes immediately that he was in the wrong, but there were various forces against him, and when he discovers that she really has left, she cannot be found.

There is a section of the novel that expresses what Cilia went through for a period while away from Gantry; a personal tragedy that also shapes her goals and motivations later in the book. Eventually Gantry manages to find her and persuade her to spend time with him, some of it related to helping her reach her goal, and because they believe the Duke to be dying and one of his last wishes was to see Cilia again. Through their time together, Gantry works on reestablishing a relationship with her, and preventing her from going forward with a formal separation.

Their relationship was a mish mash of lies, misunderstandings, and miscommunications, with far to much external interferences. His family is a wonderful example of total dysfunction, even before adding a wife/stepmother to the mix, who happens to be foreign/brown. I can completely see where Cilia would want to abandon the relationship Gantry loved her, but did not express it to her, and did not show it by supporting her status in his household, so she felt neglected and devalued by him. But she also cares for him too, and it was a fight for her with herself, her attraction to him, but realizing her own worth and wants versus how she was treated before. So he had to prove to her that he did value her, and there truly would be change in their relationship, especially in the context of being a trusting couple, and being a united family with the strength to defy negative external influences.

Again, I felt and empathy for Gantry, from the background story and the perspective Riley wrote of him. He was definitely a flawed character, but I appreciated that he also learned his errors, admit to his faults, and became much more self aware and willing to make real changes to win back her trust. His ultimate enlightenment though was when he was finally willing to let her go, because it was her wishes which should be paramount. I also appreciated Cilia's strength in realizing that she was worth more than what she was getting and to leave, rather than fall back into the same cycle of resentment, forgiveness they had fallen into, because ultimately, it eroded her sense of self worth and value, and eroded their trust and relationship.

This was a very interesting story of Cilia and Gantry's personal relationship and a wider, complex story of dysfunctional family relationships, and lost family. It took a bit of getting used to, the writing style, but I enjoyed this story very much. Again, I felt that the first two were the lead up to this third book, with some loose threads in the previous two books finally woven together... though that does not seem to mean that the tapestry is finished.

4 stars out of 5.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for this earc

Unfortunately, this book was no for me. At all

Let’s start with the fact that not at any point of this story I felt like the main characters were good for each other or in love. It started as a marriage of convenience, that turned into a very unhappy wife and should have ended.

I couldn’t understand why Felton had to marry Cecilia in the first place. For money? Okay. It’s understandable that at that time it was very common. But why did he lead her to believe that it would be more than that? Because he was in lust with her from the first sight? Well, that’s just messed up.

And once they were married, he honestly couldn’t explain to her why he was gone all the time? Why the hell didn’t he do something about his job to spend a little more time with his new wife???

And the constant manipulation????
This is an actual quote from the book and it sums up how Felton treated Cecilia perfectly

“Being sweet, helping with my art, keeping me warm, feeding me, that’s how you always did it, twisting me up, pulling me back to the moments I needed and wanted you. We don’t go back to the way things were because you now have time to love me.”

Do that sound healthy relationship to you?
I understood more Cecilia’s relationship with Felton’s father than her relationship with her husband.

This book was frustrating and made me very mad. Felton didn’t want the words from her when all the needed from day one was communication. There was ZERO communication in this book.

Overall, there was nothing in this book that would have saved it for me. Ever the plot twists that happened were unbelievable and a bit ridiculous. Once we have a bad guy, let’s just make him even worse????

Another fun installment of this Regency series. I enjoy this authors books including her 2021 Island Queen.