Author: Julia Quinn
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Bevelstoke #2
Reason Read: One of my very first twitter recs from last year & I didn't realize that her newest book was book 2 in this series
My thoughts about this book are all over the place. On the one hand, this book was a cute, light read that Julia Quinn fans will love. Sir Harry Valentine had so many sigh worthy moments, and I loved how spunky the heroine, Olivia Bevelstoke was. They both had me laughing out loud. On the other hand, the entire time I was reading this book I felt like I had read it before-even though I knew I hadn't. I have this horrible feeling that Julia Quinn has lost her spark for me, which is sad because she was one of my first auto buy authors-but that being said I am still looking forward to reading 10 Things I Love About You. What can I say except I don't want to admit that I've outgrown her stuff anymore.
This is the second book in the Bevelstoke series, and honestly I didn't remember the heroine at all from the previous book-this can definitely be read as a stand alone book. Olivia is shocked to learn that her new next door neighbor to the south (I say south because it was mentioned every other line that he lived south of her) of her might have killed his finance. She doesn't really believe the rumors, but figures spying on him can't hurt anything. Sir Harry Valentine works for the War Office translating documents-his newest mission though is to spy on a Russian Prince, who just happens to have his sights set on his neighbor..while planning a plot with Napoleon against the English Government. Harry is ordered to get any information he can from the Prince which means spending a lot of time with Olivia, He isn't too happy about that, especially since he caught her spying on him through her window-and wonders if she's just nosy or if there could be more to it then that.
What I really liked about both Harry and Olivia was the battle of wills they had between each other before finally admitting that they might have feelings for each other. There was some great banter between the two-which is really Julia Quinns trademark. One thing that confused me though, was why on earth there was so much time spent on a lurid Gothic novel. I would say at least the entire middle section of the book was focused on this. I had totally forgotten that a previous character from the series was the secret author of the books-and wish that had some how been mentioned, because that was really the only part of the other book that was apart of this one-there were no guest appearances of past characters, which I thought was a little weird.
One of my favorite parts of the book though were the conversations that Harry and Olivia had talking through their window. Harry had such great sigh-worthy lines. So while this book was totally predictable and not as good as her Bridgerton series was, it still had some parts that just made it charming to read. I did say that I was all over the place with this book! My recommendation is that if you haven't read her older stuff, then you will really like this series.
Sigh Meter: High
Crush Meter: Low
Barrons Hero Hotness Meter: Low
Sleep Meter: Low
Sizzle Meter: Low
