*Review up* 
 Finally! I made it. Whew. 
 I feel like this took me a year to finish. 
 I think I'm falling out of love with MacLean's writing. Three books back to back that haven't worked is one too many for me. 
 This was way too melodramatic for me all around. The plot, the ever present overblown 'shameful secret' trope, the hero, the heroine, the writing. It's a 416 page book and it had no reason to be IMO. A good 100 pages could have easily been cut out. I mean I got to the half-way mark which felt more like the conclusion but there were 200 pages left. I think I whimpered at that point, out loud. 200 pages left of what exactly? The hero continuing to lament over and over again how he needs to tell his father the line ends with him (RME) and the heroine constantly having to remind herself that she can't stand the hero. Oy. Give it a rest. 
 I feel like I've been saying this a lot recently but it bears repeating. Dear Authors: The more you drag out a 'shocking reveal'? The bigger you make it, the bigger readers expectations will be. I'm sorry but King acting like a jaded rake for all the world simply because Daddy dearest ran off the milkmaid girl he fell in love with is not shocking or worthwhile IMO. Like...are you kidding me? That's it? He swore off love because of some adolescent misguided love? 
 Come on! Suck it up and grow up dude. I found this so weak and made the hero come off juvenile. And it certainly didn't excuse his arrogant, sad 'woe is me' behavior. 
 "She died inside the damn coach, at my hand." 
 No wonder he hated riding in coaches. "That's why you race the curricles," she said. "You pay your penance. You risk yourself." 
 "I told you that my father killed her. As though he put a pistol to her head." 
 She nodded, not knowing what to say. 
 "It wasn't his hate that put the pistol to her head. It was my love." 
 Shall I pass you your hanky now? 
 MacLean's writing is known for being on the dramatic side, with the constant breaks, the repetition (oh my gawd the REPETITION), and the overly dramatic internal monologues that boarder a 5 hour theater play and you are wondering when it will be over. Here it was twofold because you have a couple who have no chemistry and a plot that is so poorly executed and thin that the author's dramatic tone just screams off the page. 
 Yours. 
 He stayed with her until she returned to earth, to the labyrinth, Ariadne to his Minotaur, somehow able to destroy him with her touch. 
 Yours. 
 He would hear that word, spoken in her voice, for the rest of his life. 
 Yours. 
 Truth and utter lie all at once. 
 She couldn't be his, of course. She couldn't be his, because it would require him to be hers. It would require him to love her the way she deserved. And that would never happen. It was impossible. 
 The number of times we are reminded on every. freaking. page how the hero can't have her and she can never be his is ridiculous. Like....enough. The last 100 pages felt like a year. Because all that was left was regurgitating the same information over and over and over again. There was no rhyme or reason behind it because it added nothing to the plot. You have your main characters just sitting around in different rooms lamenting over which one should leave first and say goodbye, nothing else. For 100 DAMN PAGES. 
 And the dialogue is not smart. You have these two constantly bickering with the heroine counter-arguing & questioning the hero at every turn just to have the final say that she ends up sounding stupid. 
 "You should not bite the hand that feeds you," he said. 
 "Are you calling me a dog?" 
 I mean really? I didn't ask for this. If I wanted ludicrous juvenile sparring I wouldn't be reading Sarah MacLean. So yeah I'm annoyed. I remember that little cameo Lady Sophie made in Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, the quiet, smart Wallflower who seemed witty and got to dance with the rakish handsome 'Lord E' (which turns out to be King), I was immediately intrigued. But what I got here makes me want to ask for a refund (of my time). 
 "Why not? They shan't be looking for me there." 
 It was likely the truth, but he'd had enough of this woman and the carelessness with which she lived her life. "Because you have a habit of getting shot on mail coaches." 
 "It wasn't on the coach." 
 Yes because that makes a world of difference. SMH. 
 And what's with all the lame monikers?...... 'Royal Rogue' 'Soiled S's' 'Dangerous Daughters'. Really MacLean? Soiled S's? 
 You can do better than that. 
 I honestly was gonna lambast the heroine once I finished this because she drove me insane a good 80% of the story but then things happened and my opinion changed. Only slightly. Sophie Talbot is the kind of bluestocking I abhor, she carries the sniffy 'I'm smarter than everyone' attitude that really gets under my skin. Yes the aristocracy are a bunch of snobbish sexist assholes, but the end of the day, a snob is a snob. I just found her haughty know-it-all judgmental attitude no better. There was just literally nothing at all to make me like this girl or empathize with when she kept acting like an indignant naive brat for a good portion of this. She doesn't like her aristocratic life so she decides to run away, back to her old country life not even thinking her plan through. But when she falls for the hopeless fool hero I started to feel sorry for her. I guess my biggest issue above all my other gripes is that I couldn't buy into the love between the MCs. Everything came off flat and half-approached. The hero King, I struggled to connect with entirely. He's probably the most underdeveloped flat Sarah MacLean hero I've read to date. I just didn't care for him and could not buy into this careless rake falling for the boring 'unfun' Talbot sister. How does one go about not caring at all about a girl, leaving her stranded at an Inn then suddenly rushing to save her and having the shakes over possibly losing her so quickly? This happens by Chapter 5. It just made everything following it weak and insincere. The character development and romance build up was super weak. 
 As for the next book, I'm not even sure I want to give it a try. The Scottish Duke of Werrick didn't rev my engine in here, he's a walking HR stereotype. The whole back thumping, cigar smoking, curricle racing with the chums I find so juvenile. You guys are in your 30s why the hell are you racing up and down London for?! Find a more interesting adult (sexy) hobby please. And the fact that the author felt she had to justify the hero's curricle racing as a 'penance' for his self-induced martyrdom punishment was just cringe-worthy. My eyes couldn't roll any harder. So yeah like I said...not MacLean's best.