Overall

This was always one of my favorite books in the series because I liked the romance and the plot. That remains true though there a few things that kind of jumped out at me in this reread and once I noticed them, they only got more annoying which is why the star is four, not five.

Christian’s story actually begins in the epilogue of Beyond Seduction, and there’s been some hints of Christian’s past (very tiny ones) but the romance been Christian and Leticia is definitely my favorite in the series. They have a history, much like Charles and Penny in A Lady of His Own, but their past is more ably dealt with and actually presents a huge conflict for them to overcome. And I liked that as soon he learned the reason Letitia hadn’t waited for him but had married Randall, he immediately took the blame on himself and acknowledged his own failures. He completely let her off the hook which I liked.

When it comes to characters, I still liked them a lot but here’s my main problem with Letitia. She’s apparently a member of a wild family who have insane tempers, are known for their impulsive nature…and yet, Stephanie Laurens never shows us this behavior. She tells it. Every time we get a “Vaux” tantrum, we don’t get any dialogue. She describes it.

And at every turn, the Vaux nature, the Vaux tendency comes back. Over and over again.  Stephanie Laurens has always had a piece of description that she tends to beat into the ground (Jack calling Clarice Boadicea or warrior queen) but this was particularly annoying because I was supposed to see Letitia as a certain kind of character and she just never was.

The plot and murder mystery is pretty good, and Dalziel plays into this one a bit more than we’ve seen before but that makes sense because his book is next. Some of the other reasons (beyond the Vaux nonsense) that this book, despite being really good, doesn’t make it to five stars are more spoilery so suffice to say this is the best book in the series thus far, the equal to A Fine Passion, though I think I like Clarice a smidge more than Letitia.

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