What an interesting book! There is murder, romance, intrigue, espionage, smuggling....so much is happening that you can't help but get pulled into it.
What I most enjoyed:
1. the women in this book are incredible...not a single dunderhead in the bunch! That is sooo very refreshing to see in a book that has romance involved.
2. the acknowledgement of the fact that British society has been mixed for a long time...it didn't just start through the imagination of Shonda Rimes and Bridgerton series. It's good to see that black people didn't just exist as slaves...that a good chunk of us were and are part of British aristocracy, whether folks want to believe and accept that or not.
What confused me: the way how it ends without figuring out who the mastermind of the various plots is. It didn't seem to me like this was the start of a series, and it certainly wasn't described that way. However, the confusion is tempered by the fact that some of the players in the plots are finally revealed by name; therefore going forward, some of the mystery regarding that will be gone.
It was also a little difficult to grasp everything happening at first because it seemed like events jumped all over. One minute, it's a sensuous love scene; the next, it's a murder; the next it's a clandestine meeting happening between 2 or 3 nameless people. Once you acclimate to the pace being set, you do get swept up in the story. A suggestion: write down the character list at the beginning on a separate piece of paper and have it handy as you read, so you can keep all the characters straight.
This book is great for anyone who likes a little bit of everything in their historical fiction. I'm looking forward to the next book in this tale.

I really enjoyed the storyline, as well as the characters. Well written story, it was a very enjoyable book.
I would recommend it to my friends.

Thanks to Girl Friday Productions and Netgalley I was able to read this as an ARC. It was pleasant and a quick read for me. I liked the characters and the plot fairly well.