julie anne long never misses, and The Beast Takes a Bride is no exception. this sotry was definitely intriguing and a little beguiling. my only complaint is that this whole situation could have been avoided with a conversation but alas, that wouldnt make for a very good book LOL. also super hoping for a dot story!!!

Another great story taking place at the Grand Palace on the Thames, come stay awhile.

Alexander Bellamy was wedded to Magnus Brightwall to help save her family; on her wedding night she betrayed her husband.

Colonel Magnus Brightwall has return to London after 5 years in Spain, he came back to separate from his wife.

Magnus tells Alexander that he is selling the town house that she has lived in and buying another. Since she was planning on going to New York to see her father and brother, he told her she would be living there now. If she returns to London, she will lose what he settled on her.
,
Magnus and Alexander arrive at the Grand Place on the Thames, he tells her they will go to functions together as a married couple to dispels rumors and to make sure his name is in good standing.

As Magnus and Alexander discuss what happen on their wedding night, they become intimate but not saying what their feelings are for each other.

I love the parlor nights with the reading and discussions they gave some funny laughs. Heartwarming story as Alexander never got to choose what she wants and Magnus who felt no one would want him. It moved me to see how these two came to admit they loved each other.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I am a HUGE Julie Anne Long fan, and the newest novel in her Palace of Rogues lived up to the hype. This was an angsty book--the hero and heroine have honestly hurt each other, and it was incredibly satisfying watching them fall in love and come back to each other. Throughout the book, I kept wondering how they were going to make it work, which in my opinion is a hallmark of a great romance. Alexandra and Magnus were so well suited, and their stubbornness was heartbreaking but also super warranted. And their chemistry............. Julie Anne Long knows how to write a sex scene, that's all I'm saying.

Loved this marriage in trouble take from JAL when we were with Magnus and Alexandra but I do not love the boarding house as a framing device. My major quibble here is the same as it was with the previous book in the series - for me, there's just too much focus on Delilah and Angelique and their marriages.

A Julie Anne Long book is like a beautiful symphony of words that transports me, the reader, through a myriad of feelings. She is an author who can move me to laughter, tears, and a number of other emotions with equal ease of skill. She's one of the few authors I force myself to read slowly, savoring the unique flavor of each perfectly placed word. Long's newest novel, THE BEAST TAKES A BRIDE, returns readers to the Grand Palace on the Thames boarding house for a deeply emotional, marriage-in-trouble story simmering with passion, impeccably-placed humor, and a hard-earned happy ending. I couldn't put it down.

Top Dish/5 Stars

The Beast Takes a Bride follows the tumultuous relationship between the estranged Mr and Mrs. Brightwall and their attempt at selling their “happiness” to the ton. There was a lot to love and a lot to dislike about this book, as if the reader was meant to have as conflicted of a relationship with the book itself. The main conflict in the book is the way they have each scorned each other; Magnus essentially buys her from her father with no explanation, and Alexandra kisses another man on their wedding night. I don’t know if it’s my own biases but I was unable to truly forgive Magnus as a reader. I understand his past and how often he had been rejected, but he manipulated Alexandra because he knew her role as peace keeper would force her to accept his proposal, kept his reason for marrying her a secret even though he knew she was intelligent and regarded her as so, and then was scorned by her final kiss goodbye to her first love and the life she was leaving behind. I often feel myself more critical of male characters than female characters, but I feel this time was warranted. I did however, love the residents of The Grand Palace on Thames, the dynamics were so different from one another. It did feel a bit weird to leave our main characters perspective as we did, but I enjoyed the residents so much I don’t really mind. Overall I had an enjoyable time with the story.

Thank you to Avon Books and the fabulous Julie Anne Long for my complimentary digital copy.

This book is glorious. Filled with longing and the most delicious tension. Magnus and Alexandra have been estranged for five years and haven't seen each other since their wedding night. The book starts out with Alexandra cooling her heels in a prison cell after an accidental carriage theft and Magnus returning from his stint as a diplomat to Spain. The first scene where he comes to fetch her from Newgate had me downright giddy.

Of course these two end up sharing a suite at the Grand Palace on the Thames and make a pact to repair their reputations. Unsurprisingly, they do the most unthinkably gauche thing and turn their marriage into a love match. 

JAL writes emotions so beautifully and I felt every angsty feeling these two characters had. I understood all the hurt and resentment that kept them apart but also felt their longing for each other deep in my chest. 

If you love marriage of convenience, age gap, he falls first, and some forced proximity this is the book for you. In the end the stern scarred war hero and his lonely trophy wife find their happily ever after.

The Beast Takes a Bride is book eight in the series and returning to the Grand Palace on the Thames is always a lovely reunion with old friends. The coziness and laughter make me feel like I'm chatting in the sitting room with all the long term guests. Not to mention, I'm on the edge of my seat regarding the romance between our favorite maid Dot and a certain broad shouldered footman. I can't believe JAL has teased us with tidbits for so long! I also love all the Pennyroyal Green references sprinkled into the story. I can't wait for Seamus from PRG book 7 to cross over worlds and become a guest at the boarding house.

Julie Anne Long is my absolute favorite Historical Romance author and this book is no exception. She consistently delivers with beautiful writing, deep emotion and romance.

📖 you can only rec one historical romance writer. Who is it?

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

My trip back to the Palace on the Thames was as emotionally sumptuous as ever. The way Julie Anne Long writes is an experience that is NOT TO BE MISSED, romance friends.

In The Beast Takes a Bride, we have a marriage in big trouble situation. Colonel Magnus Brightwall and Alexandra married five years ago and due to one distressing moment for this reader, separated the same day.

The angst between these two is tough & JAL’s writing made me support both leads at different times, something I didn’t think I would do given the reason behind their estrangement.

But whew I’m glad we made it 🤣.

The writing is exquisite & the way she writes characters is fantastic. My heart hurt but also I was laughing in different moments, & that’s just part of the experience of reading her books.

& so continues my fave historical romance series…

On paper this book is 4.5 ⭐️ for me but I’m rounding up bc I’ve discovered that I’ve always regretted rating any of the books in this series less than 5 ⭐️🤪. Out tomorrow!

Please see a trusted reader’s list of CWs.

[ID: Jess holds the ebook in front of a white & brown wood wall & a glass pane with flowers on it.]

All of Long’s Palace of Rogues books are like a warm hug… if that hug included smoking hot chemistry, wonderment at the miracle of love, & a cast of side characters so indelible & beloved that I yearn to spend an evening in the sitting room with them, perhaps adding my penny to the swear jar or getting invited to an underground donkey race. In this book, a genteel lady lands in Newgate after a mix-up, only to be bailed out by a battered war hero who happens to be the husband who left her on her wedding night 5 years prior. He proposes a deal: if she helps smooth over his reputation so he can earn a title, he’ll arrange for her to live independently in America. But when longing and burning attraction enter the mix, will they be able to bid one another farewell?

Thank you Avon & Harper Voyager for providing me with eARC through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. This historical romances follows an already married couple who have been separated for 5 years. When they finally decide to face each other, they try to make society believe all is well. In doing so, they find themselves reminiscing on their past and why they were drawn to each other to begin with.

I found it a little difficult to follow the different timelines throughout the story. It kept going back and forth a lot to tell us slowly of how they came to be where they are. I am not dissuaded from books with miscommunication tropes, but I feel like this one may have been a little too much for me.

There were some great moments in The Beast Takes a Bride, the latest in Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series. As always, JAL is hilarious and writes chemistry like no one else.

But take away the witty banter among the denizens of the Grand Palace on the Thames, and the actual romance feels insubstantial.

This is a “marriage in trouble” book to a severe degree: Alexandra and Col. Brightwall are married, but they have been estranged for five years after an initially undisclosed incident. They’re thrust back together after Alexandra is involved in an incident that threatens to taint Magnus’ rigidly impeccable reputation as a war hero.

Taken on its own, this is a lovely book, if light on actual plot. (I don’t recommend reading it till you’ve read the others, though, because there are a lot of inside jokes involving previous couples in the series and the other guests at the GPotT.)

As part of the broader series, though, it feels a little bit like more of the same. I also wasn’t enamored of Magnus’ behavior toward the lovely Alexandra, which I felt was extreme. <spoiler>I know she broke her vows, but Magnus BOUGHT her and they barely knew each other. Abandoning her for 5 years and then selling her home and threatening to exile her to America seems OTT even when we know his backstory.</spoiler>

The whole book just felt so similar to the last couple in the series — Magnus was like a combination of Lorcan St. Leger (beastly) and Captain Hardy (stern, battle hardened). Even though I love this world (Dot! Delacorte!) and laughed a LOT, the physical setting can feel a little limiting and claustrophobic when it comes to the actual love story. I think it’s time for JAL to wrap up this series and start a new one with more plot and/or angst. Maybe even return to Wildcat Canyon!

Thanks to Avon for the advance copy.

After a scandal, Alexandra is reunited with her estranged war-hero husband Magnus. Forced to repair their reputations, will Alexandra reignite his passion or lose him forever?

This is an often funny yet deeply emotional romance. The well-developed characters have past wounds to overcome so they can find true love together. I’m not generally a fan of the reunion romance trope, but the events leading up to Magnus and Alexandra’s separation makes psychological sense. Both are flawed but the mistakes they make are understandable and forgivable.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Julie Anne Long - always buy her books. You can't go wrong! I've enjoyed every book in every genre she writes.. While not a fan of Regency novels normally, I have loved each of the Palace of Rogues books. The Beast Takes a Bride was especially enjoyable. I give it five stars.

Given the time period, that fact that these two are married makes the physical relationship acceptable and not taboo. I enjoyed that part (though I'm no prude). It, in my mind, just gave the story an unexpected twist. Although they're married, they've not consummated their relationship. His career has taken him a far so she's been left home alone. A lot. Imagine his surprise that she's never been with another and what better proof can she have? A marriage for political and personal gain, these two don't even really know each other after years of marriage. Forced to cohabitate at the Palace they begin as very aloof and separate. Initially. And when they cross that line? Oh my!

I loved Magnus, eventually, and really loved Alexandra. I wanted these two to find happiness and really hoped they'd do it together. Of course, their path isn't easy to travel. What fun would that be? I was totally invested in that difficult road. I felt for them.

As always, it was fun to see some of our favorite characters from the previous books. They are such a group of misfits and unlikely companions but each fun and interesting..

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

As far as historical romance goes, Julie Anne Long reigns supreme in my opinion. She's at the top of her game...in fact, she invented the game as far as I'm concerned, and with each subsequent book she releases, I think she raises the bar even higher for her fellow historical romance authors.

This book centers around Alexandra Bellamy, a young woman who marries the taciturn brute ("beast") of a war hero, Colonel Magnus Brightwall, in order to save her family's fortunes. Hours after the ceremony Magnus witnesses a betrayal from his new bride and immediately leaves for an extended diplomatic posting in Spain...without her. They remain separated for the next five years until Alexandra finds herself unexpectedly arrested for some hijinks instigated by her impulsive cousin and rescued by her recently returned husband. Following their stilted and awkward reunion at the prison, Magnus checks them into The Grand Palace of the Thames, as he is readying their townhouse for sale. In order to save their reputations regarding the incarceration, Magnus decrees that they will endeavor to be seen as a happy couple at various upcoming social gatherings. Alexandra will then be sent to America to oversee her own home there, thus being separated yet again. But as they are forced into closer proximity at the inn, they are given the chance to get to know each other, something they did not have at their beginning.

I immediately and completely fell in love with Alexandra's character...nurturing, funny, kind. She was a young innocent who, following a moment's unexpected indiscretion, is forced to carry undeserved guilt into her estranged marriage. However, after being ostracized by her upright husband from the start, she retains her dignity amidst the whispers of the ton's scandalmongers and lives a quiet life alone.

Magnus, being a bit staid and scrupulously moral, came off as a somewhat unsympathetic character to begin with...until we are able to scrutinize his past and the part it has played in shaping the man he has become. As we watch him struggle with trust issues and letting his guard down, we see his vulnerabilities and insecurities begin to crumble as he truly comes to know, appreciate and cherish his wife...not just as his wife, but as her brave and true self.

It was a true pleasure to watch these two characters as they slowly navigated getting to know each other, something that should have happened before their hasty marriage. They each have their own internal struggles to overcome including feelings of guilt as well as separating public personas from who they really are as a person.

Long excels at engaging the reader's emotions...ALL of their emotions. Her characters feel real... some wounded, some lost, some searching but all intriguing and engaging on every level. I am often a bit sad to begin a Long book as I dread reaching the final page and knowing that I must wait a while to be immersed in her beautiful writing again. Her writing is poignant and insightful, and I often find myself rereading passages over and over just because of their sheer beauty and wisdom.

I could write a whole separate review on The Grand Palace on the Thames and its colorful, hilarious and endearing residents, but suffice it to say, they play very big parts in making this series excellent in every way. They feel like family, like home.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book and really any historical romance that Ms. Long has written. I'm a fan for life.

My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for providing the free early arc of The Beast Takes a Bride for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

It's no secret that Julie Anne Long is one of my favorite authors. Where other authors you count on one hand their number of five-star reads, she's a number of non-five star reads on that hand. She has an amazing gift of bringing emotions straight off the page right away and keeping true to them through the entire book.

We're back at the Palace of Rogues and she managed to heighten the emotional stakes right out of the gate.

I don't compare authors often--especially when they're both SO GOOD-- but she's done what I usually can only count on Mary Balogh for: Made me wonder how they could really get past what had happened and trust and love each other.

I feel like that's a dying art. So often books are just about the ride now - everything is forgivable (and the darker the genre gets, forgiveness seems often like a given or in some cases unnecessary) but here the layers of forgiveness needed were just amazing.

It starts with how can he forgive her...but along the way we see that she has things she needs to forgive him for as well (but will he see it????) HER actions were easily measured, his less so... can they both forgive each other and themselves and see how desperately in love they are as this new, mature couple???

This one gets slotted at the top with -- my JAL keepershelf is getting full, but you'll never hear me complain about that!

Disclaimer: This was an ARC from NetGalley. It hasn't affected my opinions in any way

Spoiler warning - this review will contain some discussion of plot points I found difficult, so you may want to skip some parts of it until you've read the book

Alexandra Bellamy has been taking care of her father and her siblings since her mother died. She has no dowry to speak of and knows her father has massive gambling debts. So when her father announces that the impressive and formidable war hero, Colonel Magnus Brightwall, will not only clear his debts, but pay an addition five thousand pounds for her hand in marriage, she doesn't really have any choice but to accept the offer. Unfortunately, only hours after the ceremony, Magnus witnesses something that makes him convince his wife has betrayed him, and instead of taking Alexandra with him on his diplomatic posting to Spain, he leaves her in his town house in London, with barely any communication between them.

Their reunion five years later takes place in Newgate prison, where Alexandra has unfortunately found herself imprisoned after being involved in hijinks involving her impulsive cousin, an angry duke and possibly a stolen carriage. Magnus shows up to fetch her, but instead of taking her to the house she's lived in alone for the past five years, he takes her to The Grand Palace of the Thames, where they will stay while he's preparing to sell the town house. There are already all sort of rumours swirling because of Magnus and Alexandra's long separation, and now, with this new scandal, Magnus is worried about his reputation. So he's made a plan (without at any point consulting his wife about her thoughts on the matter).

So Alexandra is basically told that they will appear together in public for enough social events to convince the public that their marriage is strong and loving and clearly gossiping about them is wrong and uncouth. Then Magnus will sell the town house, and ship Alexandra off to America, where as long as she agrees to this scheme, she will have a house of her own and a generous allowance. If she says no, he'll cut her off entirely, and she'll be forced to live with one of her siblings, entirely dependent on their charity.

One of my friends put this book down halfway because she was so annoyed at Magnus and the completely outragous way he treats Alexandra in the beginning, because of his pride and insecurities. She needed me to finish the book and convince me that it was worth finishing, and reassure her that she wasn't going to have a rage aneurysm because of Magnus' continued mistreatment of his lovely wife. I question the opinions of readers who don't feel that Magnus' early behaviour is entirely within reason, and he's correct in treating Alexandra the way he does. I'm a member of Julie Anne Long's fan group on Facebook, and amusingly, on release day (this Tuesday), someone posted a very well-written AITA from Magnus' point of view. Unsurprisingly, most people agreed that he was an A.

So what was it that kept me from throwing this book across the room (metaphorically, I would never risk my beloved e-readers in such a way) in a fit of rage? It is to Julie Anne Long's credit that she manages to write so well that even when I want to thump him, I also had some sympathy with Magnus. Because get to see what both Alexandra and Magnus are experiencing and thinking, the reader is first of all very aware of the remorse that Alexandra feels about her impulsive actions that led to her being immediately estranged from her husband, but also how conflicted Magnus feels. My main gripe with the story is that while the reader gets insight into his inscurites and tormented thoughts about his wife and his marriage, he never really shares them with his wife.

PLOT SPOILERS IN THE NEXT BIT:

While the man we meet in the present day of the novel is the impressive Colonel Magnus Brightwell, known for his heroic actions during the Napoleonic war (he even nearly died saving the Duke of Valkirk's life on the battlefield), for most of his life, Magnus has been unwanted and tolerated on sufferance. He was found on the doorstep of a Yorkshire manor house and spent his early life working the worst possible jobs of the household to earn his keep. Because of his rough appearance, he was given the nickname "Beast" early on, and it seems to have stuck with him. No one showed him any affection or kindness, so when he eventually learned to shoot, and won a marksman competition as a teenager, he spent the prize money buying himself a comission to the army, where he rose in the ranks and earned respect and acclaim he'd always dreamed of. So the dude has a chip on his shoulder, and a whole host of insecurities, fair enough.

However, for far too much of the book, Magnus (despite claiming to have been in love with her since the first time he saw her) doesn't seem to see Alexandra as a person, a woman with wants and needs and dreams of her own. He was taken in not only by her beauty, but her kindness, charm and unfailing loyalty to her family, but because he was so convinced of his own worthlessness and couldn't possible imagine her actually accepting his suit if she was given any sort of choic, he manipulated the situation so she literally had no choice but to accept him. If she refused him, her family would be destitute. He didn't care about what her life had been like before he literally bought himself a pretty wife. Having not really had any conversations of note with said wife before they married, Magnus had no idea that she had comforted herself with a deeply innocent and chaste infatuation with her brother's tutors for some months before she ever even met Magnus. Both parties were extremely aware that they would never be together, and the romance was never going to end in marriage between a poor scholar and a viscount's daughter.

Alexandra broke it off as soon as she agreed to marry Magnus, but a few hours after the wedding, she sees her former suitor at the garden gate (where they used to meet and chat - never anything more than that) and he kisses her goodbye. The thing that so upsets Magnus is seeing that for a brief moment, Alexandra doesn't fight back, but lets herself enjoy her first kiss. His sense of betrayal at seeing her chastely say farewell to someone who had offered her solace for a few months is deeply misguided. Not even when Alexandra is entirely honest about the situation, and apologises for her misstep and for having hurt Magnus, is he able to listen to her or understand her. He goes off in a snit to be a diplomat in Spain, leaving his wife to languish alone and rejected in his town house in London. She's the one who has to contend with the rumours and malicious whispers about why they aren't living together, and she has to keep herself and her behaviour above reproach in respect of his precious reputation. The one night she throws caution to the wind and does something ill-advised with her cousin, she ends up arrested. Even when Magnus realises how judgmental he's been, he never actually apologises for his actions and his harsh and cold treatment of Alexandra. Where he could have had an open and honest conversation with his wife, and owned up to being a judgy asshole, he instead manipulates the situation once more, to make it possible for her to "choose him" this time around. Which she does.

Magnus doesn't think he could ever get a beautiful and accomplished woman like Alexandra by honest means, and since all his life he has had to strategise and scheme to reach his goals, he does the same to get himself a wife. He just never seems to properly acknowledge that this was wrong and that Alexandra deserved so much better. Not better than him, because he is clearly not a bad person, just a proud and prickly one, but she deserved respect, an actual choice and a proper and grovelling apology for having had those choices taken away from her, and then being super harshly judged for saying goodbye to a part of her past and innocently responding to being kissed. She didn't even initiate the kiss, she just allowed it to happen and didn't forcefully push away the young man who kissed her. She never denied what she did, and she was deeply and honestly apologetic immediately after the fact, knowing that what she did was unfortunate and clearly hurtful to Magnus. The fact that he in return never apologises properly to her for his mistreatment of her, both five years ago and early on in the present, left a sour taste in my mouth that keeps me from giving this book a full four stars.

Pride is clearly a major theme in the story. At one point, Alexandra mentions that she's reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (I was going to get all snippy about how it was published "by a lady" - but this book seems to be set five years after the end of the Napoleonic wars, at which point Ms. Austen had been dead for a few years, and the true identity of the author would have been revealed, so snippiness retracted). I suppose the reader is supposed to draw parallells between Mr. Darcy and Magnus, but while Mr. Darcy initially delivers one of the worst proposals in literary history, he then takes great strides to change, broaden his horizons and makes efforts to be less proud and imperious before he proposes to Elizabeth once more. Magnus just buys himself a wife and seems upset when it is revealed that she had a past and lived a (very innocent) life before she ever met him.

END SPOILERS

One of the things I enjoy about The Palace of Rogues series is that it's a bit like a long running TV show. Instead of a "mystery of the week", we get a "romance of the week", which introduces new characters and plot beats for a while, but we also get to spend time with recurring characters we've come to know and love. I've seen some reviews complain that they thought the hijinks of the supporting characters took up too much space and detracted from the main romance, but I disagree. If it hadn't been for the delightful other guests at the Grand Palace on the Thames, not to mention ditzy housemaid Dot and handsome footman Ben Pike's slowly developing feelings for one another, I would have rated the book even lower. This is the first time I've rated a book 3.75 stars, and my annoyance at never getting a proper grovelling scene from Magnus is balanced out by several laugh out loud moments involving other residents at the boarding house, not to mention the delightful sequence where Mr. Delacorte takes our protagonists and Dot to a late-night donkey race.

The previous book in the series, My Season of Scandal, is my favourite Julie Anne Long book since my all time favourite, most beloved What I Did for a Duke. The previous one before that, To Tame a Wild Rogue, was also delightful and a five star read for me (if a lower five star than My Season of Scandal). They can't all be winners. I'm still very happy I was granted an ARC of this (thank you, Netgalley!) and am happy that the series is clearly continuing for a while yet.

Judging a book by its cover: I have mentioned before that I find a lot of the covers of this series just plain bad. Thankfully, this is one of the better ones. I feel the cover artist could have made more of an effort not to make Magnus' trousers look like blue jeans, but I guess we can't have everything. Alexandra looks pretty much as described in the book, and the shade of lilac she's wearing is lovely.

Rating the Palace of Rogues series
1. My Season of Scandal - 5 stars
2. To Tame a Wild Rogue - 5 stars
3. After Dark with the Duke - 4 stars
4. Lady Derring Takes a Lover - 4 stars
5. The Beast Takes A Bride - 3.75 stars
6. You Were Made to Be Mine - 3.5 stars
7. Angel in a Devil's Arms - 3.5 stars
8. I'm Only Wicked with You - 3 stars

“It can be even better.”
 
In The Beast Takes a Bride, Julie Anne Long returns with her eighth book in the Palace of Rogues series, and it’s true- this amazing series only gets better with every additional story and pairing!
 
Alexandra Bellamy sacrifices her own choices to marry war hero Colonel Magnus Brightwall that will save her family, all to have the marriage fall apart immediately and find herself living in isolated purgatory for the past five years… until her estranged husband returns to be her hero and a plan in place to recovery their reputations before separating for good.
 
Five years is a long time to stew and Julie Anne Long plays up the pride, angst and passions between these two so well! I’m not a fan of the marriage in trouble trope, but this couple had me understanding their divide and rooting for a way for them both to come together, while saving their pride.
 
Magnus and Alexandra’s reunion takes place at the Grand Palace on the Thames, known for making happily ever afters, not the dissolving a relationships… and thankfully the Palace works it’s charm and magic to bring this stubborn pair around to each other.
 
I love how this story shows the many facets of love and relationships, and especially how females are made to do the work for their families and are left beholden to the whim of their spouses. Necessary and ornamental all at the same time.
 
Parallel to the saga of Magnus and Alexandra, the tides are continuing to roll in and out for the regulars of the Grand Palace, with Delilah and Angelique both taking heed of the Brightwall’s romance to better secure their own relationships and series favourite Dot has her own fateful adventure!
 
Overall, I loved this book and feel it has the bones to be a classic! A must read for all historical romance lovers- whether it’s your first visit to the Grand Palace on the Thames or you are a regular visitor!

Another swoonworthy chapter in the Grand Palace on the Thames series! Here, we have a slow burn, angsty second-chance romance between a married couple who have barely seen each other since the day they married five years prior. They are forced to stay at the Grand Palace on the Thames while selling their current townhome and while Magnus takes steps to ship Alexandra off to America as part of a permanent separation (avoiding the scandal of divorce). Flashbacks show that Alexandra and Magnus had instant chemistry when they first met, but a series of missteps and lack of communication led to their marriage falling apart immediately and Magnus leaving abruptly for a diplomatic mission to Spain. In the present, lingering feelings remain between them, but so does their distrust of each other based on those misunderstandings five years ago. As they gradually get to know each other--really for the first time--they start to fall in love again.

I'm always impressed with Julie Anne Long's writing and how effectively she conveys emotions. Even though I know there will be a HEA, at the same time I was swept up in the characters' angst and longing from thinking that their feelings were unreciprocated and that they are doomed to part ways. As usual, there also are many lighthearted moments mixed in, especially involving Dot and Mr. Delacorte. The continuing cast of characters in this series is enjoyable, as always.

Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for providing an ARC for review!

Of *course* I loved this book - it's Julie Anne Long!! Such a beautiful, poignant story about a marriage in trouble. And how they found each other again at the Grand Palace on the Thames.

And god love adorable, shocking and embarrassingly amorous Corporal and Mrs Dawson. Having these two side characters was just icing on the cake.
Thank you to netgalley for the ARC. Opinions are my own.