I found this in a clearance section and having read Samantha James before, I thought it was a safe buy. There is no more delicate way to put this aside from "oh hell no". First of all, if you are anywhere in the spectrum from childfree to not insanely constantly obsessed with babies, you will not enjoy this book. If you are insanely obsessed with babies, shallow characters and bad writing - than this is the book for you.
1. BABIES. ALL BABIES ALL THE TIME. Look, I know that by reading historical romance, I will run into kids. I get that it was a fact of life back then. However, many authors do it tastefully, or sometimes not at all (often in the small epilogue, though). This book is about having babies. And wishing to have babies.
2. Samantha James has apparently decided she is now obsessed with hair. There are so many upsetting descriptions of hair in this book I had to put it down a few times. She describes pubic hair has "fleece". There is nothing okay with that. I got that her hero had chest hair, I didn't need to hear about it quite so much.
3. The characters are *awful*. Plain and simple. Flat, predictable and boring. And, bipolar as far as I could tell. I could barely keep up with them, if they were fighting, in love, who hated who, who said something SO INCREDIBLY INSENSITIVE AND STUPID this time. It happens a lot. It was so cliched I started skimming because I knew I wasn't missing any details.
4. Again, I know in regency that women will be sheltered or delicate. And any of the books I have loved with strong female leads are probably more inaccurate - but seriously, they're enjoyable. This female main character, however. My god, most annoying woman ever. She is the definition of sheltered naivete, and is SHOCKED multiple times over very not-shocking things. It got very tedious to read.
I feel almost bad giving such a scathing review, but this book was that awful. I'd be crying if I paid the $7.99 for it. Stick to her older stuff, I have actually enjoyed that and thought it was cute. This was painful. ( )