I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in a book. I adored 'Aphrodite and the Duke' - though I'm starting to think that was because of the time and my temperament. I've since read a lot more historical romance and this is showing its weaknesses. I think I could have pushed on, had there not been a sequence where Verity, the heroine, said 'but, how can you like me if I'm mentally ill' (I'm paraphrasing). Which made my blood boil. What kind of half-assed crap is that?? That gave me the immediate ick and I put this book down, which makes me even more upset - I wanted this to be GREAT! I've been anticipating it for months!

A few more concrete issues - there was exactly zero chemistry between our leads. Indeed, the far more interesting story would have been Hathor and Henry. I was very surprised when this book turned out to be from the POV of the sister of the first book's heroine, rather than other members of the Du Bell family (of which there are multiple). These two don't make for particularly interesting romantic partners and for some infuriating reason, the author kept jumping perspectives right in the middle of scenes, making said perspective changes totally irrelevant. There was no opportunity to build up tension, to create drama - especially when the confession of love scene happened barely a third into the book. Verity just woke up one day and realised she was in love with Darrington - it's just...lazy writing.

The writing in this book is incredibly slow. In the first book, I was hooked and read half of it in a day. With this one, I was struggling to crack one or two percent a day. The writing isn't strong enough to keep me entertained and there were so many characters, none of whom were given enough time to develop, that I got bored. Moreover, there are some really heavy issues worked in here - namely, child abuse - that don't seem to gel at all with the genre this author is working in. Nothing was given enough time to marinate and so, the book just felt all over the place.

I'm so disappointed. I might be tempted to pick up another book in this series to try and catch the magic that the first book brought me, but this half-baked attempt at a forbidden love story is not worth your time.

This was slightly disappointing. It started well with an intriguing dialogue between the main leads. However, it turned out to be a bit of a pot boiler. At times, people were dropping like flies and the male lead, a doctor was perpetually dashing to someone’s aid undoing the awful treatment a person had received prior to his attendance. Then it seemed that people lurched from one crisis to another till it became a bit unrealistic. Shame.