Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 This is a biased review in the sense that this book appears to have been written specifically for me. Seriously. Look at the title page under a microscope, and you'll find, "Written specifically for CarrieS" in tiny aquamarine-colored cursive metallic type. 
 A Week to be Wicked is one of Tessa Dare's "Spindle Cove" books. In this Regency romance, Minerva needs a favor - she needs Colin Sandhurst, AKA Lord Payne, to fake an elopement with her. Colin, AKA the improbably named Lord Payne, lives in a castle. Not a manor - a castle. He opens his own door, shirtless, as one does, when Minerva knocks on it in the middle of the night, during a rainstorm. So we are off and running in the wacky Regency madness races. 
 WELL. That shit is MADE FOR ME. I hasten to state emphatically that my own mother is very supportive and affectionate, and I suppose I should add that I have only a passing interest in science as opposed to a burning obsession (my academic burning obsession is literature). But if Minerva happened to be short (which I think she is) and ever so slightly overweight (which she is not) then we might as well just stick a picture of me on the cover and call it a day. Minerva reads while she walks and she lies in a meadow with a hot guy and makes remarks about the chemical composition of the soil. I adore her. 
 This book isn't flawless. Colin has great reasons for angst (so much PTSD!) but his whole "I break every thing I touch and no one thinks I'm worthy and they are right" shtick got old fast. Minerva can be alarmingly callous. They are both totally confused about sexual boundaries although everything remains consensual. I just wanted them to run off to Scotland, have sex, and win all the prizes, already, the heck with pages and pages of "will they be together or not" angst. I realize that the Spindle Cove books are supposed to be interconnected, but the subplot with Kate and Corporal Thorne was an unwelcome distraction and messed up the pacing. The end is messy, although I think that's sort of the point (and it's also unequivocally happy). 
 - Carrie S.