There are some things Grace Burrowes does extremely well: evoking a historical period, writing dialogue, describing no-nonsense sex scenes. She's almost always worth reading (I didn't finish Worth, ha!) So this is another good book with great historical details and interesting characters.... but the tone was odd (this was true of Worth too, BTW). The hero and heroine were only ever arch and ironic with each other, even when discussing serious things. All the back and forth mockery and calling each other "Husband" and "Wife" (who does that?) got tiring after awhile. The tone never shifted and by the end it didn't seem romantic, strangely enough. They seemed to never quite let down their guards enough to be sincere with each other and that disrupted the intimacy. They were a good couple in the sense of being well matched, but as a whole the book wasn't completely satisfying.