Martha Waters – 4/5 Stars
Read this if you:
· enjoy enemies to lovers romances
· love a MC that does what she wants and not what is expected of her
· appreciate that the sequel is sometimes better than the original
Synopsis:
Diana and Jeremy are infamous for their non-stop bickering that has plagued the ton for many years. One of these arguments turns into a wager: If Jeremy is wed within a year, he must pay Diana one hundred pounds. Shortly after, Diana attends an extended party at Jeremy’s country home. During this stay, she is shocked when he approaches her with a proposition: a brief affair between the two of them so that Jeremy can have an honest critique of his bedroom skills and the widowed Diana can have the gossip she needs to show other men she is interested in having a lover. Diana has convinced herself that she can accept his proposal and lead him to find a wife so that she can win their wager, but when feelings start to develop between the two, she may not be able to have it all.
My thoughts on the book:
This book is the second in a series and I didn’t love the first one so I was a bit wary when picking this one up. One thing I did note when reading the first book is how much I loved Diana as a supporting character and I loved her even more as the main one. She has no interest in following society’s expectations of her, except when it’s to her own benefit.
I really enjoyed the banter between Diana and Jeremy and found their chemistry to really come through on every page. I also thought it was great that while there were some things that flashed back to the first book, this could really be read as a standalone. This book also really had some great supporting characters with their own side stories that helped to keep the book interesting. One thing I’m not a huge fan of in books is poor communication and while the main characters did struggle with this a little bit, I found that the resolution came quickly enough that it didn’t grow frustrating for the reader.
Thank you to Atria books for the eARC copy of this book!