In some random twist of fate, I am here for the plot and the plot ONLY. Because the chemistry between these two characters? The enemies to lovers? The raw sparks that were flying off the page as these two insulted each other as they fell in love? GORGEOUS. I was so invested, I was so excited. I love a widow story and I especially loved that Belinda did not cower in front of Nicholas or act like he was anything more than a kid who needed to grow up. Their sparring was just a joy to read and I give kudos to the audiobook narrator for bringing that to life.

I'm knocking off a star because by the time we got to the steamy scenes - and they don't really appear until the last quarter of the book or so - things got very cringe, very quickly. Like, we're in fanfiction territory here. They're written with this insane energy like this woman's never seen a penis before. At one point, in one scene, he got in and she came. It seemed like Belinda could orgasm from a breeze coming through the window - this woman was having seven or eight in one go and it was just so stupid. Also the narrator did not pronounce areola right and I couldn't stop laughing. The sex scenes are badly written, but it doesn't take away from the rest of this book being just so fun to read. I'm also deducting one star because consistent American-isms kept working their way into the prose from non-American POV's - particularly sidewalk and blocks, which are not phrases we use here, please do some basic research - and it just took me out of the whole story.

Considering this was published in 2013 (and the sex stuff reads like it's 2013 lads), this was a really solid historical romance. Definitely coming back for more if we get more great character work like this.