Shorn of her glorious raven tresses and dressed as a man, Lady Antonia Lamb became Lord Anthony Lamb, desperate to keep the property entailed to her twin brother, who is missing at sea. Trapped—and liberated—by her masquerade, Tony meets her new guardian, the devastatingly dangerous Adam Savage, who has returned from his plantation in Ceylon, determined to turn the innocent “boy” into a … worldly man.
A rake whose scarred face and ice-blue eyes made strong women weak, Adam Savage, legendary adventurer, vowed to take young Tony to the fleshpots of London; to teach him everything a young heir should know. But not even Savage guesses Tony’s deepest secret, a masquerade destined to erupt in passionate abandon on one scorching, unforgettable night.
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Overall:
Plot/Storyline:
Feels:
Emotional Depth:
Tension:
Romance:
Sensuality:
Intimate Scene Length: varies, but on average? – there is a long first one.
Steam Scale (Number of Scenes): – this may vary for you – some scenes were on the shorter side but I still counted them.
Humor: Yes, I wouldn’t say it’s a lighthearted book at all but there are scenes that made me laugh out loud
Basic plot
Anthony and Antonia are 16 year old twins that have just lost their father. They are placed under a guardianship, a man they’ve never met who lives in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). When Anthony goes overboard on a ship and is presumed dead, Antonia takes his place as the heir to keep their inheritance from their greedy cousin. The guardian turns up to take things in hand – guiding “Tony” in his future.
Give this a try if you want:
– You must be okay with various content warnings!
– You’re ready for a slow burn – the actual hero and heroine don’t meet until after 100 pages, and it takes much longer for him to realize she’s not actually a man
– Heroine dressed as a man trope – one of the longest done and most convincing ones of this plot I’ve read
– Older hero trope/underage heroine – the heroine is SIXTEEN here people – not sure how old the hero is but he was her father’s friend and I’m assuming he’s in his 30s
– You also have to be okay with the hero kissing and touching the heroine’s mother before meeting the heroine and falling in love with her instead. Yep.
– Scarred hero – he has a knife wound that runs from his nose into his upper lip and it’s commented on numerous times
– Don’t know the exact year – but it’s just prior to the Regency – George III is talked about being mad and the prince discusses a regent bill being proposed
– You’re all right with some random head hopping including the prince and his lover
– Guardian/ward trope
– Some world travel/road trip romance – scenes take place in London, in the English countryside, Ireland, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Italy, France…
Higher steam – there’s lots of open door scenes that vary in length. They are pretty explicit – 90s explicit
My thoughts:
Wow, was this book a wild ride. It’s my first Henley in decades – I know I read 1-2 of hers in high school but can’t recall anything about them.
I loved parts of this book and hated parts. It was so, so, soooooo slow in the beginning for me – I am anxious for the hero and heroine to be together and find myself getting so bored/annoyed when they aren’t together interacting a fair bit – they don’t even meet for the first 130 pages or so and it was starting to drag. When they were together, it was amazing. But then I started really itching for Adam to realize Antonia was actually a woman. It just went on. And on. And on! It was almost at 400 pages before Adam realized Anthony was Antonia. It was a very long time to wait.
I really loved a lot of their scenes together – I was prepared for Adam to be an absolute jerk but he was usually quite tender, playful and protective with her – and I just ate that up! I loved that he admitted he loved her – fairly freely – it was at the end of the book-ish (remember he thought she was a man for 400 pages!) but then he was open with it and I loved that. The heroine would tell him his eyes were as Blue as the Bay of Biscay and it was funny how it always lead to the same thing.
Sadly, there was just too much that I didn’t love in this book to raise the rating to 4 stars. I probably really really loved about 100 pages or so. The rest was getting super irritating and it’s a lot to forgive in a book that’s over 500 pages.
There was something compelling about the writing to me though – I did find myself wanting to read it and I hid away from the kids and my husband most of the day.
I was a touch annoyed with a few things with the plot – I just could not buy that the hero had spent all this time with the heroine and never has a clue that she was a man, other than thinking him effeminate at the beginning – until just out of the blue, he sees her napping and realizes it. The build of this discovery had me so anxious and wanting something more from it (after 400 pages! 400 pages, have I mentioned it took that long???) that I was just rather let down by the whole thing. THEN the fact that he just randomly realizes she’s the same woman as the one in Italy?? That also drew my eyes towards the ceiling – I recall him saying something like green eyes? Brunette hair??? Come on…it was just too convenient for my taste, so I was disappointed in both of those big reveals.