A bit less than stellar 3- the MMC is a selfish aristo. ( )

Eighteenth century Batman story ( )

Romance with mystery and suspense mixed in, the subplot of the Ghost of St. Giles introduces a fair amount of danger into the story.

The plot is great, page-turner, with lots of anticipation and a most satisfying conclusion.

The Duke of Wakefield is a great character full of secrets which are slowly revealed. Artemis Greaves finally gets to step out of the shadows she's been living in as a lady's companion.

The all-but-inevitable sequel is well-planned, with continuing characters and unresolved puzzles. ( )

I don't particularly care for violent and amorous passions being mixed together, such as the scene where (mild spoiler) she slaps him across the face, and he says "you bitch!" and then angrily starts kissing her. (And this is not after years of marriage or something where they both know it works for them, they've practically just met!) I get that both are high emotional states, (and this isn't entirely uncommon in romance novels), but, I just don't like it! It seems like quite negative behavior disguised as being romantic.
Also, he thinks she's like the goddess Diana, which is very complimentary(!), but then that's pretty much the only name he calls her by for the rest of the book! While they're having serious conversations, during sex, when telling her for the first time that he loves her...! He's probably meaning it like saying "my Goddess", but eesh. Does he love *this* actual woman or just some projection of another being she reminds him of?! We're generally partial to our own name, and I don't think most would be keen on a man just tossing it out and renaming her! All of that said though- the characters and their relationship are compelling. It was a bit hard to put down and I was always wondering how things would play out next. So, four stars, despite the issues I had with it.

On a 2nd read- The heroine has a strong backbone and I liked that even more this time. I still agree with my previous points about the hero, plus some new strong feelings about things, lol. (Minor spoiler)- He doesn't take care not to impregnate the woman he's determined not to wed. I hate that. She would be cast even further out of society if she became pregnant on top of being a fallen woman, and life would be pretty hard for the child also. To be fair, this apparently never crossed the heroine's mind either, but still. And he also lashes out repeatedly when he feels vulnerable, which I'm also not a fan of either, and is quite selfish! This time though I realized that not only did he lose his parents when he was still quite young and immature, but also because of his title, he pretty much stopped being guided by, or accountable to, anyone! So it makes a bit more sense that he would have some arrested development. He's been spoiled by being almost above reproach and having everyone jump to his bidding since he was nearly a child. He didn't really have to (or have much opportunity to) learn healthy conflict resolution. Really though, I'm almost surprised I didn't utterly despise him! He mostly just ended up interesting to me though. Spoiler- As well as the potential pregnancy being entirely ignored, the hero hardly spares a thought for how having a scandalous mistress would effect his young sister, or what his future wife might think of him keeping her cousin as his mistress on the side! I think society would frown on that in a big way! And he's feeling all this pressure to marry well to live up to ducal expectations, but never considers that marrying beneath him might, in fact, be preferable to bringing the scandal and shame listed above onto the family/title. The heroine considers some different aspects of the affair, but it seems unlikely that the hero, who plans and notes every detail about other things, would not appear to consider any of the ramifications. Near the end his sister mentions his lack of propriety as proof he loves the heroine... but it felt a bit spotty to me. It's a compelling read though, and this heroine is well suited to help the hero learn to be better! ( )

Loads of fun. Hoyt's books are silly and over the top, especially the Maiden Lane series, and for me sometimes that works and other times it leads to painful amounts of eye rolling. Here is works, mostly because Artemis and Maximus are lovely characters. I will say I have not read these in order, and that has worked fine, but I am glad I came to this after having read so many of the earlier books because the climactic scene would have been baffling if I had not known about the earlier ghosts of St. Giles. All in all this book was charming. ( )