*5 SHINING STARS!!!*
Honestly, I don't know why it took me so long to dive into this series. I had only read Silence's book (Book 3) a while back and it didn't blow me away but Duke of Sin caught my eye so I thought I may as well give this series another go. But this...this was just magical. The gritty backdrop and dark tone with the Jack the Ripper-esq murder mystery really added nicely to the Georgian era of lower class slum living London. I just really couldn't put this down because of that. The world building and detail is exceptionally on point and so good. Even the murder mystery is gripping because it's so grizzly and realistic. I appreciated that Hoyt held nothing back there. Made for a much more raw, realistic honest read. As for the leads..... *sigh* what can I say?
Two vulnerable, lonely closed off hearts, battling their own demons who come together so naturally without restraint. I don't know who surprised me more in this, straight-laced proper widow Temperance Dews or domineering cynical brutally sharp-tongued Lazarus Huntington. I didn't think Lazarus's whole long silver haired look would work for me, I kept thinking Lucius Malfoy but without the permanent sneer. But Lazarus made it work. Boy did it work for him.
Hoyt's handling of prose and way with words in this is so beautiful and layered. I kept finding myself re-reading passages simply because I enjoyed the delivery of lines and turn of phrase. Her descriptive imagery is so clear and lyrically smart. I don't remember it being this good in her Legend of the Four Soldiers series which was a total bust for me.
And I really have to say I’m most impressed and applaud the direction Hoyt took her heroine here. All my (6 lol!) years of reading and piles of historical romance books I’ve read, I have yet to come across a heroine like Temperance. A woman who enjoys passion and sexual intimacy but is embarrassed by it and tries in vain to tamp it down and live a good clean life because of a mistake she made. On paper that sounds so derivative and hysterically cliche but it wasn’t here. She’s so much more complex and human then that that it honestly blew me away. I was waiting for her secret to be an overblown overused HR trope of being cheated on, abandoned, her husband not being able to get it up given all the subtle internalized angsting and hand wringing but no. It’s something much more bold, realistic and unforgivingly honest IMO. She slept with another man while she was married to her husband. Happened only once.
Let me be clear, Hoyt doesn’t try to make Temperance into something she’s not, not a revolutionary ‘modern’ heroine of her time who craves sex all the time, no excuses or justifications are made for her mistake, no ‘he deceived me!’ arguments. And I think that honestly saved this from becoming a martyr crusade of 20 ways she needs to repent and the hero can show her the right ways to have sex. Nope. This was about a woman who is warm blooded and enjoys sex and learning to accept that and forgive herself. I found that so damn genuine, real and refreshing. FINALLY someone who gets it! Someone who knows how to approach the subject of sex and women in the historical era in a believable and vulnerable way.
Seeing her blossom and take ownership of her own desires and so honestly with a man who wouldn’t judge her and yes even calling her out on her martyr tendencies was a wonderful payoff. I was cheering her on. Yessss. Go girl! Own it!
The *only* thing I do wish was a little more fulfilling was the reveal of the St. Giles killer. That to me was a little too predictable (and obvious) and I found the killer’s motives to be too thin & all over the place. There’s killing women in a fit of rage, a fit of using them as an example and then there’s doing it as a show of scaring off competing business (which I found really hard to swallow) using both reasons just didn’t jive for me and didn’t connect well. But overall, loved it! Can’t wait to dive into the rest of this series! :D
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Top reviews from other countries
Eleonore Caron
It had some steamy, sexy parts that made me tingle all over , just reading it!
Reviewed in Canada on January 7, 2017
Hope this helps
Historical Romance and Adventure
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2014