Earning the nickname Lady Agony was no minor achievement for Lady Agatha Bolingbroke. It required a great deal of effort to make herself so disagreeable, but she did it for a good cause: The fewer invitations she received, the more time she had to paint. Her mother, refusing to accept an unpopular daughter—or, worse, a talented one—insists on dragging her to every event of the season. To thwart … thwart her parents and to vent her frustration, Agatha creates a wicked alter ego: a caricaturist whose mocking illustrations take ruthless aim at the ridiculousness of the ton. Her most recent target is Viscount Addleson, whom she dubs Viscount Addlewit for his handsome but empty head.
Then one of Agatha’s drawings goes too far and a villain threatens to reveal her true identity if she doesn’t comply with his demands. Now she has an impossible choice—ruin herself or an innocent young lady—and to her utter amazement the only person who can help her is Lord Addleson, whose handsome head, upon closer inspection, isn’t empty at all and whose eyes are full of mischief.
Suddenly, she finds it very difficult to be disagreeable to him.
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I am stunned at the number of 5 star ratings for this book. One called it an easy read! Another was shocked at the sex scene near the end.
I found this book so dull and hard to read, I almost quit at 30% on my Kindle. There seemed to be little forward movement in the storyline at all, and the author wanted to show her vast command of terms used in the Regency era (most of which I had never heard of before). There were so many terms per page, so much that it interrupted the flow of the story (however little there was at that point). I gave up trying to look up what they meant. Definitely detracted from the story! Yet there were typos which created a stark contrast between wanting to show off her Regency vocabulary and not editing the book well enough to catch glaring errors. It was also clear that this was not the first book in the series (I had not read the previous books). The author seemed to give a rather lengthy explanation of things she thought you needed to know about situations that occurred previously in the series, but wasn’t really complete enough. Finally around 35-40% of the book it became somewhat interesting. I did wonder if the author could not decide between a romance and a mystery, and just jumbled it all up to create a story. The characters were rather flat, and the sparkle I enjoy in these kind of romance stories just wasn’t there. The sex scene at the end was totally unnecessary, and more graphic than I prefer (although I have read worse). Overall, the mystery portions were the best part of the book.
Very entertaining, I laughed out loud in a few spots!
Didn’t get to the beginning of the story arc fast enough. Tedious starting…couldn’t got any further. I felt like a thirsty reader begging for something to quench my narrative needs. This wasn’t it.
A little dry and wordy
Could have been a favorite, but ended with an unnecessary sex scene that ruined the whole book
Did not finish the book. It was much too word and the characters became boring.
I haven’t read a book like this in a long time. Its a witty intelligent humour in a regency setting. Mafe me laugh out loud several times.
Such elaborate and formal prose, which I assume was the author’s attempt at being clever, made the book a dead bore. I quit at chapter three.
Slow and boring.
By chapter 4 I couldn’t take any more. The long winded internal descriptions and extraneous dialogue was too much to hold any interest. The concept of the book was good and I kept hoping the author would constrain herself and get to the point but it was not to be. Disappointing