You can spend an entire book telling me that your character is plucky and strong-willed and interesting - but if everything that character does makes me want to slap her / shake some sense into her, you haven't written it properly.

Ugh. I haven't read a historical romance for a few months now because every single one of them was basically the same and I prayed that this book - the follow up to Anna Bradley's first in the series, which I enjoyed - would change my feelings. If it hasn't been made clear yet, it didn't. This book DRAGGED. There is no reason for it to be this long, the characters and the plot do not warrant it to be this long. Prue is an infuriating character - we are told, constantly, that she's plucky and strong and 'not like other girls' but put within six feet of another person she becomes the dullest creature known to man, all trembling and 'innocent' and, of course, immediately turned on by a man actively trying to control her every move who is, inexplicably, in love with her despite the fact that his granddad is making them get married. Jasper is an ENORMOUS RED FLAG, even for historical romance. My god. I cannot stress enough how, if you encounter a man like that in real life, you sprint in the opposite direction. I am so sick of reading historical romance with these kinds of characters in it. I've written it, it can be different! We don't have to spend our lives reading gender stereotypes!

Literally, the highlight of this book is when he gets shot in the butt. Yes. That is something that actually happens and is a genuine, serious event.

This was so stupid. And I'm so annoyed.