2.5 stars -- strong start that peters out into something less interesting by the end.a duran novel can teeter between mediocre-with-hints-of-greatness and strong-with-lapses-into-mediocrity, and this one is juuuuuust barely the former. PROS: meredith duran does a great job in *all* of her novels, this one being no exception, of creating heroines who refuse to relinquish agency, and her heroes often start out from a place of well-meaning misogynist belittling but come around to more fully understand and appreciate the heroines. it's philosophically refreshing.CONS: the initial spark of interest duran creates between her hero and heroine never pays off for me, and by the final chapter i felt insufficiently invested to celebrate their happy ending. When I started this book I was in the mood for something light, and in that score, it didn't deliver. It has it's light moments, but it's mostly serious.Gwen is an heiress with no family and a scandal in her past in the form of a broken engagement. This book begins with her wedding day with her second fiance who ends up abandoning her at the altar. After the event, she snaps and decides to stop trying to be liked and approved and do what she really wants to do no matter the consequences and society's opinions.Alex was Gwen's brother's best friend. He is unconventional and aloof, preferring to spend time travelling and taking care of his businesses instead of conforming to society's standards. An illness of his childhood has left him feeling restless and trapped just at the thought of staying someplace for long.Alex is a witness to Gwen's first attempt at freedom from convention and the two end up in Paris, experiencing the other side of life in the city of scandal and lowered inhibitions. They discover things about one another that they wouldn't have imagined and become close while indulging Gwen's need to be wicked.The era the story's set in is late 1800's, where the world is changing from the proper, strict world of Regency England to a world full of possibilities, promise and new inventions. The feeling of the story is different and so are the morals the characters are governed by.This is a good book with complex characters with issues that don't magically resolve themselves, but it's a bit out of what one would usually expect of a historical romance, mostly due to the different time period.
Do You like book Wicked Becomes You (2010)?
Charming but a little too much time centered on a silly adventure instead of the characters.
—lami
This book was too long and slow paced. I never really got into the romance.
—grace1212
