Plot: Anne is the daughter of a Duke, and as such, was Born To Greatness. Or at least, to marry into it. To ensure this, she is kept sequestered from the world right up until it’s time to get into the marriage mart. Despite her imposed innocence, Anne is no fool, and quickly realizes that her appeal starts and ends with her dowry. Anne goes from innocent to jaded real quick, but her lack of experience with clever frauds means that when Marcus Lithgow, who had researched her in advance, appears to share her interests, she does get sucked in. Fortunately, she does clue in rather quickly, and decides to turn the tables. Marcus has no idea what he’s in for. Shenanigans ensue.
I really appreciate it when authors build a character and then actually committing to it. This seems like a strange thing to appreciate, but having, as we do here, a heroine who grew up sheltered, even a clever person is going to have to learn a lot, and do it the hard way. More often than not, I see these kinds of protagonists become extremely capable, extremely quickly. I think of it as the Rapunzel effect. Girl was locked up in a tower her entire life, but as it turns out, her lovely innocence was all that was needed to bring out the kindness in a bar full of lifelong criminals. It’s trite, and Neville doesn’t stoop to it. Anne is very clever, and learns very quickly, but she is not worldly, and there are certain things that can only be learned with time. So she is clever and funny, but also volatile and (hilariously) petty and completely naive not only in the way the world works but also its true hardships. She has a lot to learn and a lot to experience.
The ways in which our experiences (or lack thereof) can limit you, is also explored with our worldly hero Marcus. Sure, he’s a lifelong crook who has been all over the place (and kicked out of most of those places). He knows how to charm and lie and pick locks, but that’s kind of where his education and experience end. He doesn’t know how to deal with the trauma of his childhood or just about any aspect of his unexpected inheritance. He is chasing an easy mark for money because that is really all he knows how to do and hopes that the rest of the solution to his new, overwhelming, responsibilities will come along. And hey, if not, he can just bail as he always has. Marcus’ journey is therefore also one of learning, of experiencing brand new things and realizing that there was more to the world and to him that he’d realized.
Overall, I’d call this a great meat and potatoes regency romance. It was enjoyable to read, but writing this a few weeks later, little of the story jumps to mind. I will also note that for whatever reason the audio really, really didn’t work for me – so I actually went about a quarter into the book before restarting on ebook, which was much, much better.