HE PUT HER ON A PEDESTAL
When Celeste Gray arrives in the sleepy village of Brixcombe-on-the-Bay, she thinks she's one step closer to leaving her notorious past behind. She even suspects the deliciously handsome--if somewhat stuffy--viscount next door is developing a tendre for her. That is, until the day Ashlin Lancester learns she's not the unassuming spinster she's pretending to be.

NOW SHE HAS FARTHER TO FALL
After a decade of proving he is nothing like his profligate father, Ash is horrified to have given his heart to a Cyprian. He launches a campaign to prove his attraction is nothing more than a sordid reaction he can't control. But he soon learns that unlike his father, he can't find comfort in the arms of just any woman. He needs Celeste. When he takes her as his mistress, he's still not satisfied, and the many late nights in her arms only make him want more..

The book starts with Celeste retiring to the country with her friend Elizabeth, having retired from being a courtesan (associated with the “Cypriots”)

The local landed gentry - Ash - sells her her new cottage. It is not long before she realises that he is the son of an aristocrat with a reputation for sleeping around and who was shot dead by his wife after one too many affairs. As a result Ash doesn't want the same reputation as his father so has remained celibate and trying to protect his sisters’ reputations whilst rebuilding the dowries that his father had squandered away.

When confronted with Celeste however all his planning and resistance is for naught, and he enters into a relationship with her when back in London, even knowing her sordid past. The relationship is short, but reality soon breaks through, especially when his two sisters take matters, and their own lives, into their own hands.

I agree with other reviewers that say it was slow to get started. I'm not entirely convinced of the Elizabeth character beyond being a bit of a mcguffin at the beginning - Celeste is willing to give up her London life for her at the beginning, but their relationship soon dropped after Elizabeth goes back to London, only briefly reappearing later in the book when she needs Celeste’s help.
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Celeste and Ash are trying to escape the shadows of the past. Ash came across as a jerk more than a gentleman quite often in this story. The main reason, he felt there was something flawed inside of his makeup that he needed to purge. Celeste wants more than the notoriety of her former profession. She wants to live and exist in a place where she can be known as her true self not just a name. She decides to make a fresh start hoping to find all she seeks and succeeds until her past comes back to haunt her. The Trouble with Being Wicked is a triumphant story about overcoming circumstance and prejudice to successfully face any roadblock. Celeste is a great character because she owned her past and made a choice to claim her future regardless of others. Her strength was an inspiration.
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The Trouble with Being Wicked, Naughty Girl Book 1 by Emma Locke
1840 Celeste Gray and her friend Elizabeth are just carrying items into her new house. It's dilapadated and Liz can't wait to get out of the molding place.
Celeste had hired a footman, Tom to help. She had paid Lord Triston and he had no idea he had sold it to a woman.
The women were to live there while Elizabeth gave birth-they have no help and they are not close to the city. Story also follows Lord Triston and his two marriageable sisters.
Love the outside excusions and gardening. We learn more about all of them and their past as time goes on....
A wrench in the works in the guise of a man from the city-Roman. She hopes he keeps her identity and whereabouts a secret...erotic sexual scenes and descriptions.
Other works and excerpts are highlighted at the end. ( )

Think about a man who likes to act all just right. Who, wanting to prove his point of view, just smothering her younger sisters to do what they want and feel compelled to be a good example in absolutely everything.
A man like that would be boring, right?
Well, that's how Ashlin Lancester rather be.
It's fun to see all the trials that Ash submits ara keep away from Celeste. She was a plague in disguise and he could not allow a woman who dressed that way and taught her sisters to climb trees, get near them!
But as Ash was stubborn, Celeste was also.
And even being famous - and good - as it was, she found herself in love with the man who would never accept the way of her life.
When he asks her to be his mistress, she accepts for a while, just in order to experience the warmth, but I knew I would not have future together.
Good to know there will be more books in the series. As a reader we cling to good characters and want to know more about the "after-the-happy-ever-after." ( )