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Genre: Historical: European, Romance

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A

Genre: Historical: European, Romance

Theme: Age Difference, Class Differences, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity

It is no secret. I love. This. Series. With each book that is released, I wonder, can this one reach the same heights as the preceding ones? Each time, I am shown in no uncertain terms that it absolutely can.

Gabriel runs a gambling establishment in London. Ginny’s brother loses his entire, newly inherited fortune while gambling at that establishment. As the older sister who stepped into the breach when her parents died, Ginny travels to London to talk to this Gabriel and try find a resolution.

That first conversation Gabriel and Ginny have is electric and I don’t use that word lightly. There is so much tension and nuance and emotion. It thrilled me. During this conversation, Gabriel says that he’ll forgive the part of the debt owed to the house if Ginny spends a night in his bed. Obviously, Ginny refuses. She leaves, feeling bested by the man.

The nature of this conversation – its depth, insight and interest – sets the tone for all the conversations that Ginny and Gabriel share. There is a quality to the writing that lifts it up out of the superficial and into the extraordinary. I include an extended excerpt here from their opening salvos:

‘Oh, I see. The way it’s a bit ironic that your first name is Gabriel, the name of an angel usually referred to as heaven’s messenger, while you run a gaming … ”
Ye gods, his light eyes could and did get colder. They were downright arctic now.
“Hell?” he completed almost silkily.
Which is when she sensed it was wisest not to confirm or deny that that was what she had been about to say.
“Look around you, Miss Woodville.””He swept out a hand. “Does this establishment resemble hell?”
“I cannot truthfully say, since I haven’t personally visited the actual underworld. I’ve only ever read third-person accounts.”
Something at last flickered in his unblinking regard. She could not be certain, however, whether it was amusement, or surprise, or incredulity. Or whether she ought to be worried.
“Your ferns are spectacular,” she soothed.
“My-” He stopped and drew in what sounded like a patience-siphoning breath.
“Miss Woodville, since you were raised the daughter of a viscount, I suspect you’ve been sheltered from such distinctions, but Lucifer’s Fall is a gentlemen’s gaming club. Like White’s, only I daresay more exclusive. Hence its popularity. It bears little resemblance to establishments often referred to as hells.” Lest she feel comforted by this claim, he added “I assure you, I would know.”
This didn’t surprise her in the least.
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I inadvertently trod upon a sensitivity, Mr Marchand”
“I have precisely zero sensitivities.”
She would have loved to argue this point in other circumstances. “How singularly blessed you are in that regard.”

By chance, Ginny and Gabriel are both staying at the Grand Palace on the Thames, the location for all the books in this series. So they interact a lot. And it’s delightful.

Where can the plot go from here? Initially, the indecent proposal by Gabriel is pushed aside as an impossibility. They are adversaries and in no way would Ginny sell her body. So Ginny tries to find other ways to solve the problem. There are two debts that the brother ran up: a debt to the house and a debt to a mystery man. Ginny needs to puzzle out the mystery man’s identity and then see if he’ll forgive the debt. It’s a huge amount of money so she has only a tiny glimmer of hope. Gabriel sticks by her side to protect his gambling establishment. He can’t have his patrons harangued and harassed into forgiving debts that were established fair and square.

You could put me in the stocks, and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the moment the enemies became more interested in being lovers. There is a soft sinking into love in this story. Each delicious tendril of accord forms while they talk to each other. The changes are minute and so easy to miss, but you FEEL the change, you drift where the story takes you, until you look around and realise everything is now different, our foes are perhaps falling in love.

Gabriel is such a strong character. Not the silent type. Not the brooding type. The confident type. The assured type. The type with sincere charm that is not at all smarmy. He has an edge of danger to him (he brought himself up in St Giles, after all) because he has worked as hired muscle in the past. But the man has untold depths and Ginny plumbs those depths with her insight and her curiosity and her drive. Ginny, who has led her family for nigh on eight years since her parents’ death, finally feels like she can put down her burdens when she’s with Gabriel. She feels safe with him. Not that Ginny gives her problems to Gabriel to solve – she has a strong drive to solve them herself, but the temptation to just surrender to the protection that Gabriel offers is tremendous.

Every romance novel has a scene where the lovers declare their love for one another. I won’t give you even a hint about what this one is like, but it is one of my favourites of all time.

This is technically an age gap romance – he’s 36 and she’s in her early 20s. Often age gap romances give me the ick, but it conformed to the stereotypes in only the most superficial sense – he has more experience and she has less. But otherwise they are equals, each as powerful and impactful as the other (on each other, at least)

As with all the books in this series, lighter moments come from the side characters – the permanent residents at the Grand Palace on the Thames. I have genuinely come to appreciate them. Initially I found them a bit tiresome, but I have mellowed in my views on that score now.

If you need a book with a huge amount of emotional depth and breadth, and you’re craving something mature, considered, and breath-taking, give this book a chance. In fact, I recommend the entire series, and I hope you’ll tell me what you think. As for me, when this series ends, I think my heart will break.