2.5 stars
I’ll be perfectly honest — I think I’m in a little bit of a historical romance funk right now and I didn’t like this book as much as I could have. Let’s break it down.
Plot
There was too much plot and little of it was entirely reasonable.
Plot 1: the romance, ostensibly. I’ll get more into this later.
Plot 2: Temperance and the Foundling Home, needing a patron. This is part of the contrivance behind Temperance and Lord Caire’s “agreement,” where his end of the bargain is that he will introduce her to peers of the realm who are in a position to offer financial assistance to charitable projects. This plot is visited periodically, primarily by descriptions of the current squalor of the home, but also occasionally by having Temperance attend soirees where she looks shabby next to the ladies.
Plot 3: Lord Caire and his murdered mistress. This is the other part of the contrivance behind the agreement, where Caire apparently requires the assistance of someone, like Temperance, who is more familiar with the London slum of St. Giles than he so that person can be his “guide” while he makes inquiries after a murder most foul. Therefore, her end of the bargain is to provide said assistance. This part makes very little sense to me, because after Temperance takes him to a few places the first time they go out sleuthing together, it rather seems like Caire has as many ideas and as much knowledge of St. Giles as Temperance does. This knowledge includes things like knowing the next person to talk to after speaking with someone in a brothel, and also having a better memory of streets, alleys, and shortcuts than Temperance does, which comes in handy the multiple times they are attacked in the street. Furthermore, the whole idea behind Caire trying to track down his mistress’ murderer is suspect at best, because he barely cared about her. Caire’s only friend in the book eventually provides a neat explanation why he would bother, but I didn’t totally buy it.
Plot 4: The Ghost of St. Giles. A completely random and irrelevant tangent about a literal masked vigilante that somehow gets a surprising amount of attention devoted to it. I’m gonna make an educated guess that one of the upcoming books in this series features the Ghost and the main plot is how his secret identity puts the woman he loves at risk.
Plot 5: Temperance’s family. 5a: Brother Winter, who runs the Home with Temperance and is always dour and disapproving. 5b: Two other brothers whose names I don’t care to remember, who are also disapproving, one in a more condescending, shouty way, and the other in a more silent, emo way. 5c: Sister Silence, who is totes in love with her husband, who captains a ship that recently had all of its cargo stolen by a river pirate. Silence, who is just doing this for her husband, goes to negotiate with the river pirate, and there are CONSEQUENCES. Likely spoiler: Silence’s husband is a twit and another of the upcoming books will probably be about her and the river pirate.
As you can maybe see, Plots 1-3 alone would have been more than enough for this book, but the latter two are also shoe-horned in to tease the sequels, and added nothing at all else as far as I can tell. I hate this impulse from writers. If the first book is good, I will read the sequel. You do not need to dilute the goodness of your first book by cutting away to secondary characters who are unimportant to the narrative at hand.
Romance
The romance itself may have been the only redeeming factor for me, though it was hampered by the overwhelming morass of the rest of the plot and a few other key annoyances that I’ll probably describe in detail because apparently I’m in that kind of mood.
Lord Caire is yet another romance hero who believes himself too hardened by a loveless childhood to ever know how to love. He channels his considerable damage toward profligate rough sex with any willing whore. He also has some kind of physical condition that means he experiences pain at the touch of others. The closest analog to what is described is possibly tactile allodynia, but that seems like a remarkable stretch considering that he’s not sensitive to the touch of clothing, just people, and that it can be cured by the touch of people he actually loves. Whatever.
Temperance Dews is… oh, I don’t know. Temperance was fine. She’s made of strong stuff, and holds her own against Lord Caire, but I guess I didn’t completely understand why she ever fell in actual love with him. She was lusty, sure, but he was so antagonistic to her most of the time, and has so much baggage in general, that I didn’t really want him for her. On the other hand, I can understand why she was tired of always being so practical and self-sacrificing, and the moments she allowed herself to be selfish were clearly very rewarding for her. Oxytocin man, it’s a beautiful thing.
I’m delirious and this review was crankier than this book probably deserved. I’m switching back to paranormal and contemporary romances for awhile, so maybe I’ll be cured of my historical meh-laise.