This one was a miss for me. I just couldn't connect to the characters. I am sure that it was find the perfect readers for this book though!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an arc of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

No one out there is doing it like Felicia Grossman! Utterly unparalleled in every way, she writes with deft and care that you can feel on every page. Wake Me Most Wickedly is such a great read!

Steamy and romantic, a fun gender-swapped retelling of Snow White. Grossman does a fabulous job of showing Jewish life in Victorian London. A bit slow-moving at times, and I grew frustrated with the characters. Hannah is convinced she must stay away from Sol, but does nothing of the sort, and Sol spends a lot of time thinking about convincing Hannah to be with him but not doing much different. Nonetheless it was a fun read and I can’t stop recommending this series.

Grossman's previous entry in her Once Upon the East End series, Marry Me By Midnight, was a compulsively readable triumph, filled with heart and heat. And the cultural richness of how it depicted Jewish culture in Victorian London only added to the superb story she told.

So I was surprised by how little I enjoyed the second installment, Wake Me Most Wickedly. There's still the three ingredients--heart, heat, and a rich appreciation for Jewish culture-- so I have a feeling many fans will still be happy. But for me, this fell completely flat. Sol and Hannah are good characters in their own right, but I never believed in their romance; the chemistry didn't ever click for me and I found most of their interactions after the first 1/3 of the book tedious to read through. The pacing also felt very uneven, which didn't help the "click" for the characters. I like high-heat books, but when *I* feel like the bedroom scenes are tedious....

I'm not sure what happened with this one. Given my strong positive feelings for the first book, I'd be willing to give another Grossman romance a shot, when she publishes a third book in this series. Still. This just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the ebook ARC. All opinions are mine alone.

I read around 25% of this historical romance and thought that the writing and characters were really well done. I just found it really confusing without having read the first in the series. There was a lot of references to characters, situations and business practices that I just did not understand. Since I enjoyed the writing, I may go back and try the first to see if that helps the overall reading experience.

Outlier from a norm of commonplace historical romance.
This story was unique as it explore a different aspect of culture, class, and life.

I love that the heroine was older than the hero. That Hannah was strong, independent, and smart. I love that the hero was a tad silly - a facade perhaps, but he was a bit kinder and an idealistic.

The ending was perfect. It was kind of Sol to not retaliate against his brother. It was sad the situation between them but it was the way that Hannah and Sol could be together.

This story was grittier.
A good historical romance.

What an amazing cover! The book was a little difficult for me to get into, as I didn’t read the first book in the series. It can work as a standalone, but I feel like the beginning of the book relies heavily on interpersonal relationships and background that were established in the first book.

I loved this book!! It was fabulous and well done. The characters were on point and I thought the plot was well developed. I would recommend this book to others.

This was unlike any historical romance I've read before because it's set in the Jewish community in Regency-era London. While you don't have know the different between Sephardic and Ashkenazi because to story explains the factions in the community early on, knowing them definitely makes this one more interesting. I noticed one reviewer expressed frustration that they didn't know some of the words used here. Having simply grown up in an area where people spoke Yiddish, I didn't have any issues. I thought the amount of Yiddish was just right in that it reiterated the setting without feeling over the top (thought 60+ instances of "oy" might be a few too many!).

On to the story - this was a class mismatch story with a female main character, Hannah, who is trying to earn enough to support her and her younger sister and prepare that sister for a successful foray into being matched with a suitable husband. Hannah's parents were pawnbrokers who were punished for fencing stolen goods, what all pawnbrokers of the day did to a certain extent. Hannah runs the shop and takes on side jobs brokering information and sometimes being an accessory for thieves. Meanwhile, the male main character, Solomon, is working two jobs to please his brother, who wants to marry a non-Jewish aristocrat. He just needs money and a great reputation to be accepted.

There are so moments early on, when Hannah and Solomon are just meeting and getting to know each other when you have to suspend your disbelief. I think time jumps could have been used to more effectively get them together. Them crossing paths after services made sense. Other meetings seemed implausible in light of the different statuses they had in the community. Regardless, once they get together, they were an interesting couple. There's one moment when Hannah forgets to tell Solomon some very, very important information that doesn't make sense...his life has been threatened several times and her silence leads to more trouble.

I enjoyed this because it was so different from other Regency romances. This story stands alone, though it's part of a series.

This story just wasn’t for me. I had trouble connecting to the characters and didn’t really care where their story went. It wasn’t bad, it was just okay.

I encourage everyone to see it for themselves tho.

Thank you NetGalley and Forever Publishing for the ARC.

Loved the history and the sense of the time period and family/community conflicts. But romance was unsatisfying. MMC was particularly thinly sketched.

Every Felicia Grossman romance is a must read for me, and Wake Me Most Wickedly did not disappoint. I had high expectations, particularly after Marry Me at Midnight—the first book in her Once Upon the East End series—and I was delighted to return to Grossman's imagining of the East End in this book. While I'm not a huge fan of fairytales and this is a retelling of Snow White, I found that the fairytale aspect wasn't too overt and it didn't detract from the plot for me. Hannah and Sol, the two main characters, are a delight—perhaps my favorite main characters in any of Grossman's books—and it was so fun to delve into the seedier parts of the East End. I loved it and can't wait for the next one!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in return for an honest review.

Oh my gosh, so much intrigue!! I loved Hannah and seeing the slice of life she has carved out for herself and her younger sister. It's hard and sometimes scary, but she's worked so hard for it. And Sol...my squishy cinnamon roll, I love him. This was a wonderful book!

I was given an ARC by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Wake Me Most Wickedly by Felicia Grossman is a Regency Jewish retelling of Snow White and the sequel to Marry Me by Midnight. Words cannot express how much I loved Marry Me by Midnight, my favorite Romance novel last year, and how much I loved this one, too.

Sol Weiss’ older brother is courting Lady Drucilla, a gentile, while Sol is becoming more integrated in the Jewish community, contributing to tension between the two brothers. Hannah Moses is an older sister doing everything she can so her younger sister can have a good life, even at the cost of her own happiness.

I loved the dynamic of the older woman-younger man paired with Hannah being an older sister who raised her younger sister and Sol being a younger brother raised by his older brother. The juxtaposition of their situations really served to highlight positive and negative aspects of sibling relationships while also weaving in how Hannah and Sol’s different perspectives are still connected by wanting to make sure their sibling has everything they wanted.

Like with Marry Me by Midnight, Grossman shows different aspects of the Jewish community during the Regency era, from the treatment of Ashkenazi Jewish people to the class system to the use of Yiddish.

There is so much to love here and it all boils down to how Felicia Grossman writes dynamics, integrates the world of the Jewish community of the Regency period, and the ways the fairy tale aspects are used.

I would recommend this to fans of the original book, fans of fairy tale retellings, and fans of Regency Romances.

Felicia Grossman's second genderflipped Jewish historical fairy tale is another delight.

I was given an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

To me, this series is like a darker, English version of fractured fairytales. Instead of damsels in distress, it's dudes. And as recent events have show, antisemitism never goes away, because evil and ignorance go hand and hand.

Most of the characters in the previous book, reappear here, but the heroine is Hannah Moses, trying to raise her younger sister and keep her away from the dangers of the more seedier part of London. She runs the pawn shop that her parents had owned, her parents now gone; they know not if dead or alive, because they were accused of some crime by an antisemite. She is also shunned by the Jewish community. Solomon Weiss, who had failed to win the "princess" in the previous book, becomes obsessed with her after she saves him from a robbery. He seems more naive here then in the previous book. And he is torn between his loyalty to his older half brother, Fredrick, the one who had himself baptized in the previous book in order to pursue wealth and acceptance with the goyim and the woman he loves. The author cleverly inserts apples, mirrors, dwarves (actually little old ladies, four who moved away to live by the shore) and the fairy godmother. But who is the wicked stepmother? Pay attention as you read. Sol gives a lovely soliloquy to win his lady love towards the end and the Author's Notes are well worth reading. I like the characters, story and intrigue, but the bit about what happened to Hannah's parents is not quite clear to me.

I read a gifted copy of this book via NetGalley.com. This is my unbiased and voluntary review.