4.5 stars
Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on June 3rd, 2026.
Genevieve “Ginny” Woodville travels alone and unchaperoned to London to confront the man known as “The Reaper”, Gabriel Marchand, owner of one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs/gaming hells in the city. Her newly come of age younger brother, who also recently became the Earl of Highgrove after the death of a cousin, got drunk one evening and gambled away not just the entire newly acquired fortune, but also mired himself in debt. Since some of that money was going to provide dowries for the Woodville women, so they could secure good marriages, it’s imperative that Ginny get the money back within the month.
Marchand offers to forgive her brother’s debt of several thousand pounds to him if Ginny agrees to spend a whole night in his bed. Naturally, she refuses his offer and hopes to never have to see him again. As fate and the sort of coincidences that usually only happens in romance novels to throw our lovers together would have it, Marchand and Ginny are both staying at the Grand Palace of the Thames, where the rules of the proprietresses require all guests to dine together and socialise in the parlour at least four nights each week.
Ginny manages to identify the person her brother lost a whopping 15,000 pounds to (in addition to the 4000 he owes Marchand), and he’s none other than the Earl of Sydenham, her father used to call friend, but who also seemed to never have forgiven that Ginny’s mother married Woodville instead of the Earl. If Ginny manages to locate a rare Ming vase, part of the inheritance her brother would have gotten from the late Earl of Highgrove, Sydenham is willing to forgive the debt. Otherwise, he wants it paid in full in a month.
The Woodville siblings became orphans when Ginny was sixteen, after her father drove his high-flyer too quickly around a corner. Ginny’s mother survived her husband by two days, and on her deathbed, Ginny promised to always take care of her younger brother and twin sisters, and make sure they all made good marriages someday. Having single-handedly spent the last eight years raising her siblings, taking care of the family finances, managing their crumbling estate, basically taking on the responsibility of both her deceased parents, Ginny is determined to find the vase so she can restore the fortune that her brother lost. Unexpectedly, Marchand proves to be a valuable help in this search, both helping to locate possible places the vase may be, and providing protection when she insists on going to more unsavoury areas of the city to look for it.
Of course, all this galivanting around unchaperoned with a devastatingly handsome rogue, while also seeing softer sides of him when they spend evenings together in the cosy parlour of their boardinghouse, means that Ginny not only stops hating Marchand, but also realises that she may be ruined for all other men, not least Francis, the carefully respectful third son of a duke she had assumed she would marry until she had to go off to London to save her family. Marchand is equally surprised to find that this stubborn and unusual young woman, who refuses to be afraid of him and constantly challenges him, is making him yearn for a very different future, one that doesn’t involve him eternally striving to acquire more wealth and influence.
Full review here.
