I tried. I really did. I forced myself to read 75% before I gave up. The idea for the story line is fine. The execution is not. The third person omniscient point of view (never appealing, ALWAYS difficult to write well) is utter chaos. The transitions between the characters is not well defined —leaving the reader to have to pause and figure out whose head they are currently in. It is difficult to get lost in a story when you’re constantly pausing to figure it out. I really didn’t need to be inside a foot man’s head when he is an extremely minor character in the story. Too many names, too many characters, too many side stories. No less than a quarter of the book (probably more) could and should have been cut. Much of that was twaddle. Some could have been salvaged and made into separate stories. Fortunately, the book has few typos and grammar problems. For that, I am truly thankful. When I tried to make myself finish the book, I realized that I really didn’t give a fig about the characters or what happened to them. I had too much fluff and twaddle to keep,straight to devote enough energy to care. This author has several other works published and I will read one of those next, hoping that she developed her storytelling skills and found an editor or publisher to reign in the chaos.

Hero is unbelievably dumb, and yet the heroine returned time after time. Ridiculous.

I enjoy historical romances on occasions. While I thought this one was overly long, still it was well written and kept my attention.

This is the first book by Eloisa James that I've ready. I loved every minute of it. Her characters were very interesting and very believable. Can't wait to get started on another book!