Lady Phoebe has been slowly going blind for her entire life and when the light finally fades for her - there is only one man to protect her. Captain James Trevillion will keep Phoebe safe - hopefully, he can also keep his heart that way.

This was an Oprah Winfrey giveaway of tropes - and that is entirely a compliment. Want some grumpy and sunshine? Want some bodyguard? Want some pining and brooding hero? Want an absolute angel of a heroine? Literally all of that and more!

Trevillion is a fabulous brooding hero with some legit pining from page one. But he also is the only one who listens to Pheobe and doesn't decide things for her. Pheobe's discussion about and relationship with her blindness is an amazing storyline alone. I legitimately loved so much of this and was super happy to jump back in to Hoyt's fabulous Maiden Lane series.

It may be the after effects of dental surgery meds, but I just loved this one. It is funny and sweet and full of excellent side characters sure to appear later in the series. I laughed, I cried: Better than “Cats.”

This just really wasn’t a good book. It had me in the first third. I was thinking ooOo historical romance, funny character names, a little mystery and intrigue, but then it shit the bed.

Spoiler

Three kidnappings is just entirely too many. The first gets the plot going and heightens the stakes, sure. The second one being the motivating factor for Trevillion to take Phoebe the hell out of dodge. But the third was just frivolous and stupid, beating a dead horse at its finest.

I found the writing to be over simplistic and more in line with fan-fanfic of some kind than a published novel, the dialogue was too simple and the characters felt like they were being forced by the writing to seem more complex than they actually were.

This book does have smut in it, though it’s pretty tame overall. I’m sorry but the names Phoebe and Trevillion are just not sexy and reading them in the context of smut scenes just gave me the ick.

I did like the that Phoebe was blind, which sounds weird, but I thought it was a unique plot motivator and I did enjoy the way it forced the character to interact on a different level than more traditional romances. If nothing else, if you like virgin or one-bed-at-the-inn tropes, you may like this, or at least not hate it. Lesson learned, those books with the sexy covers older women read on the beach are not for me.

Didn't enchant me...

I liked this one a lot! The heroine, Lady Phoebe Batten, is the younger sister of the Duke of Wakefield and Lady Hero Reading, both of whom had their own books earlier in the series. All along, we've seen as Phoebe gradually lost her eyesight, and by the time of this book she's completely blind. Her overprotective brother has assigned a former dragoon captain, James Travillion, to be her bodyguard. Travillion was also a minor character in previous books, having led the hunt for the Ghost of St. Giles until an injury crippled his leg and forced him to retire from the army.

Phoebe is a sweet girl and gets along with everyone -- everyone except her ever-present guard, that is. He seems like the embodiment of all her frustrations with the circumscribed life forced on her by her blindness and by her brother's reaction it. To her Travillion seems humorless, dour, stuffy, and controlling, and she finds him irritating.

In truth, beneath his serious, world-weary and cynical exterior, Travillion has fallen for the pretty charge twelve years his junior, and his stiff, controlled manner hides both his affection for her and his passion to keep her safe from harm no matter what. He's smitten with her, but she literally can't see what's on his face when he's with her. His voice and his manner certainly seem to be nothing but curt and businesslike.

When Phoebe becomes the victim of a kidnapping plot, Travillion takes matters into his own hands and spirits her away to safety at his family's horse breeding farm in Cornwall, in spite of the fact that he hasn't been there in many years and has reasons for having stayed away. As they travel together and then settle for a short time at the farm, Phoebe gets to know the man beneath the gruff exterior, and Travillion finds he can't keep a professional distance from her after all.

I really enjoyed the whole premise of this story. Travillion is one of my favorite of the Maiden Lane heroes. He's honorable and stoic with hidden emotional depths. I love how dedicated he is to keeping Phoebe safe, and yet he's one of the few people who treats her as an adult woman with a mind of her own, instead of an invalid who needs to be taken care of like a child. And he's the one who finally understands Phoebe's need to have some freedom and autonomy, even if it means she might sometimes stumble and be hurt - physically or emotionally.

Phoebe herself has been such an endearing character all through the Maiden Lane series, and I grew to like her even more in this book. She's kind, intelligent, and deals with her disability pretty matter-of-factly. She's not a figure of pathos at all. Yes, it's a shame that she can't see and sometimes she regrets that, but she doesn't feel sorry for herself and she doesn't want other people to do so either.

I enjoyed the part of the story set in Cornwall and getting to know Travillion's family background. Hoyt is really good at making even small characters very real and worth caring about.

The villain of this book is Valentine Napier of [b:Duke of Sin|26804433|Duke of Sin (Maiden Lane, #10)|Elizabeth Hoyt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1464745704s/26804433.jpg|46829059] fame, and he was definitely more villainous -- and seemingly nuts -- in this book than he was in [b:Darling Beast|19271097|Darling Beast (Maiden Lane, #7)|Elizabeth Hoyt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1392183319s/19271097.jpg|27318281]. Val's sister Eve also played a part in the story and I enjoyed her introduction into the series.

All in all, one of my favorite Maiden Lane novels! It all worked for me.