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�� Disclaimer: when reading romance books, I read the steamy-steamy parts first and then back track because I like to see if we're working toward anything when later reading the events leading up to it. I did that with this book and I'm glad I did because the steam was Meh with a capital M , thereby saving me from a bunch of disappointment. When I used this "method" with Book 2, I was like OMG THAT IS GOOD. But this time, with this book? Meh.

WHERE WAS THE "BIG DADDY ENERGY" THAT WE WERE PROMISED????

�� 3.4 stars for now, but that is subject to change if I don’t feel any desire to reread it or particular chapters. ��

🔍 Did not locate any face-sitting or spanking... and I am pointing this out because we had this in Book 2 (Heartbreaker), so it has been done and done well there. 🔍

✧･��: *✧･��:* *:･ﾟ��*:･ﾟ��

⋆Please note, this book is not by any means a bad book. It is on my bookshelf (not the one reserved for God-Tier historicals), but I physically cannot tolerate a book that I dislike being on a shelf, so the fact that it is on a shelf points to the fact that I still think it is good enough for my brain to overthink.��

I don’t know why, but I really do think that Sarah MacLean’s best books are her debut ("Nine Rules") and "Heartbreaker" (Book 2 in the Hell’s Belles series). Perhaps because there’s a lot of casual praise kink in them and only a handful of cheesy moments (in my personal opinion) as opposed to a bucket load of cheesy moments that make me cringe way too hard. I will say, that because Book 2 was a five-star read for me, I think that Book 4 will also be a five-star read (and that Books 1 and 3 will just be fillers for me).

Here is one thing that I don’t understand about Maclean’s “MacLean-iverse��, and that is the need to make everything seem cheap. In interviews, she has said that historical romance is fantasy and like yes, but also no? Why is it fantasy to read about a duke falling in love with his valet? Or a widow falling for her lady’s maid? Or the daughter of an earl falling for a stableboy? Like yes, these stories weren’t necessarily written in tons of diaries for all of us to read about 2 hundred years later, but does that mean that a historical romance is simply a fantasy or a figment of our imaginations? So that’s my one thing that I can’t get out of my head when I read this series: that this is all written through some ironic lens ? So I’m left feeling like okay is this just me not understanding the plot, or is this cheesy for the sake of being cheesy in reference to a MacLean-iverse moment? Because somehow, (and this is not be comparing authors�� talents, it is just to demonstrate a personal opinion) when I read about a train accident (for example) in a Lisa Kleypas book, I’m not rolling my eyes thinking “dear god, this is just so that we can get a caretaking scene��. I’m fully invested, and sometimes that’s exactly what I’m missing in these books. That intensity and depth. That attention to historical detail through research.

The amount of onomatopoeia in this book bothered me a lot. “Do you feel that? That rattattat�� “kaboom.�� boomboom boomboom. “Boom.�� Like in my personal opinion, one use of that literary device is sufficient. Use it once and then put it to bed if it is not serving any literary purpose.

The “I’m not like other girls�� was so strong in this book that I truly was rolling my eyes. At one point, Imogen says that she was good at chemistry and equations and had a passion for explosions, but that she could not master ballroom dances or embroidery. Umm okay so anyone writing historical books should read “The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives�� (5 stars), which is an academic book accessible to non-academic audiences about the pocket and women’s embroidery across different geographies for over 400 years. It is fascinating and puts into perspective just how important embroidery is (and how it shouldn’t be considered “frilly�� and thus less than). Speaking of which: Imogen's blade strapped to her thigh? Is that supposed to be like a thing to be hot? Because a blade in a woman's *pocket* was very much a thing in history and very accessible if you were in danger and being threatened...

�� In addition, the passion for explosives got annoying really quickly. Every time a character said “get gone�� to someone, I was saying the same thing, only I was saying it to the “quirky and likes explosives�� trope.

Tommy’s character was painfully flat and this is coming from someone who doesn’t care about character growth (at all) . I seriously do not need a character’s personal growth to be measured in their personality traits. I do, however, expect to feel *something* or some affinity to their personalities, though�� and in this book with Tommy and Imogen, that was not the case. Here’s how grumpy Tommy is: “Detective Inspector Peck was having a bad day.�� There we go. That's it.
�� I wanted this man to be growly in a convincing way. I wanted this man to enjoy spanking (we got none of that). I wanted this man to literally use Imogen as a body to ravish in the bedroom with no thoughts and then catch all the feelings later. In Book 2 of this series, we literally had the hero get a shave from the heroine because he knew he was going to pull her up on his face to ride it later. In that SAME BOOK, he spanks her when she hesitates. Like iconic. Literally incredible. We had so many good girls and tired girls in that book. In this book? “It would please me.�� “Would it please you?�� Please. Don’t stop. “Never��. Blah blah blah.

Also I read the internal monologue quote of "I would paint you with my love" and that just made me cringe, I can't help it.

✧･��: *✧･��:* *:･ﾟ��*:･ﾟ��
The epilogue was very good, though, because it really is giving some authentic excitement and angst for the love interests in book 4!!!