Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (there’s 1 more developed scene and a few shorter ones)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥ish (This is hard to rate because there are a handful of scenes but some were so short and light I hesitated to count them as a ‘full’ scene – details at the end of my review – I decided to count the 1 longer-ish scene as a flame and the other open door scenes as a flame)
Humor: Yes, a bit (maybe not as much as her Lairds’ Fiancees series)
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
Percentage which mains are first on page together: Almost immediately (pg 8)
Cliffhanger: No
Epilogue: Yes
Format: paperback from the library

Should I read in order?
This is one of Garwood’s stand alone novels

Basic plot:
Caroline catches Bradford’s attention and interest after rescuing his party from bandits.

Give this a try if you want:
- Georgian time period (1802)
- English duke hero and English/American heroine (she is English but was sent to America at the age of 4)
- jealous and possessive hero
- hero loves first/hero pursues
- bit of enemies to lovers feel (lots of bickering/banter)
- bit of instalust (especially on the hero’s part)
- you’re okay with an arrogant hero and some pushy dubious consent
- lower steam – there’s a handful of scenes, but so many are short, light or vague – I considered this a 2 steam

First line:
Angry voices awakened the child.

My thoughts:
I was enjoying a bit of the first half of this one, but ultimately the hero was a bit too annoying for me to love this story.

I just finished Garwood’s Lairds’ Fiancees series, and felt like this one was a bit lighter on the humor, so that was a negative for me. I did like the time change to pre-Regency London. I love the setting with balls, and social calls, and wooing and this one had a bit of that.

The hero, Jered, though – he ended up being just too much for me. I can love (and even prefer) a jerk hero, an aggressive hero, and dubious consent, but in this one, the things the hero said were just making me cringe so badly. Hero pursues in this one definitely, which is one of my favorite things, but I was left finding him also unlikable. He didn’t seem to have empathy during certain times for the heroine and came off as rather selfish. I didn’t find him as protective as the Lairds’ Fiancees series – to protect her he seemed to hurt her and leave her, not explain things that should be explained...I was just unhappy with him.

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:

This shows what kind of hero Jered is

“You’re a stubborn man! You completely ignore the fact that I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Yes, you do,” Bradford informed her. “There is something going on between us. I feel it and I know you do too. I believe that we should acknowledge it, and the sooner the better. I’ve no time for games of courting, Caroline. When I want something, I take it.”
---
“I am interested in you,” Bradford interrupted. The statement was spoken in a quiet voice. His expression turned serious and Caroline found herself becoming nervous all over again. “Caroline, I always get what I want. When you get to know me better, you will accept.”
“I don’t want to hear this!” Caroline made the protest in a fierce whisper. “You sound like a child who has been overindulged.”
Bradford wasn’t offended by her comment. He shrugged his massive shoulders and replied, “You’ll have to get used to me, I suppose. But in time, you will accept. I won’t be defeated, Caroline, only delayed.”

----
This part made me really despise the hero. He was so selfish and uncaring and just hurtful

It took a moment for Caroline’s statement to filter through Bradford’s haze of passion. By the time he felt in some semblance of control again, Caroline had moved to the seat across from him, once again clutching his jacket over her torn gown.
Caroline was suddenly terribly embarrassed. She trembled and the knot inside her wouldn’t go away. She realized that she really wanted Bradford and that absolutely horrified her. She belonged in a tavern, she told herself. She was cold now, cold from the shame penetrating, and as humiliating as it was, she began to cry. Lord, she hadn’t cried in years, and damnation, it was all his fault. He was the experienced one and should have known what he was about!
Bradford saw the tears stream down Caroline’s cheeks but was in no mood to offer comfort. He was in acute pain and it was all her fault. Didn’t she realize her appeal? Didn’t she know the temptation she flaunted? What kind of people raised her? He asked himself with building fury. Hadn’t anyone taken the time to educate her in the boundaries of flirting? She had reacted with such ardor, and Bradford thought that her need for completion matched his. He sincerely hoped that it did, he thought with anger. God, he hoped she was hurting every bit as much as he was.
---
“Good,” Bradford replied. His voice was curt but he was no longer yelling, Caroline was sorry for it, as she was aching now for a fight. “I am in pain too.”
“And why are you in pain?” Caroline asked.
“Are you serious? I am in pain because you have made me want you. Are you really such an innocent?” His voice had increased in volume and he leaned forward, his hands on his knees, glaring at her.

---
I thought this part was funny

Caroline considered coming down with a splitting headache. She put the back of her hand to her forehead in a dramatic gesture, even as she thought how cowardly she was behaving. “I do not feel -” She didn’t finish her sentence. The door had just shut behidn the marquis, and Caroline was being jerked around. Her cape was slung over her shoulders, rather roughly.
“Stomach problems” Bradford asked in a lazy voice as he adjusted the collar on her cape.
//
Caroline, you’re very quiet,” Milford finally remarked. “Don’t you feel well?”
“She has a stomachache,” Bradford announced in a clipped voice. “And it’s not going away. As soon as she accepts that, she’ll feel remarkably better.”

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- scenes of danger/gunshots/gunshots wounds/threats from bandits
- some...whatever this is - Little Clarissa turned out to be a good fifty pounds overweight. She took a long while getting ready and then began to play, again and again, until Caroline lost count of the number of beinnings. The poor girl was trying her best but that proved only inadequate.
- definite dubious consent and aggressive hero
- attempted sexual assault/purposeful compromising of heroine by side character
- carriage accident
- threatening blackmail letters

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: 

No 

 
Pg 88 – kiss
Pg 132 – kiss
Pg 134 – kisses
Pg 196 – kisses
Pg 212 – 🔥missionary, followed shortly after by a fingering/oral for her (quite short) then implied closed door blow job
Pg 245 – fingering for her, missionary (It’s short, not even 1 full page)
Pg 256 – missionary it’s barely a page
Pg 289 – very short and vague scene
Total pages 31 

 

This one is particularly painful. I loved this book as a teen in the 1990s, but it does not hold up.

It did make me chuckle still. It didn't end in pregnancy. The relationships with her dad and uncle were still sweet.

But no. 

It was written in 1986, and while the author was trying to be inclusive, it feel flat.