3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. I think this would have been greatly improved edited down some, the ending especially, meandered on long past when things would normally be wrapping up. And the heroine was slow to mentally adjust her expectations for like the entire second half of the book. It was quite frustrating, (especially when there were a few false starts, where I'd think 'well, she did *finally* come around at least' only to realize no, she was actually still desperately clinging to her faulty assumptions. *sigh*). And one minor thing, throughout the book the hero is apparently giving confession, telling his side of the story to a priest, which was interesting, but later on he goes into the nitty gritty parts of their steam together, and it started feeling really cringey to me. Circumstances turned out to make this a little better, I think on a second reading it wouldn't bother me so much, but still, for a good portion of the story it felt a little squirmy giving a priest the play-by-play, (also there seemed to be a thread deliberately left loose about that plotline which niggled a bit). Overall though I liked the rest of the writing and story enough to still round up despite those weaker areas. The story was creative, and the characters had good chemistry. The hero was especially endearing. And I thought the steam was especially strong, despite the 'priest getting an ear-full' part. This is my first by this author and I think he has great potential. ( )