This is my favorite series ever and i almost forgot how much i love James Malory and Julia's and Richard's story is one about love and friendship and how a fake engagement becomes something much more real when true feelings are at stake. Love it

It's a few years since I've read a book by this author who is a favourite of mine for this genre. This story is part of the Mallory Family series. Familiar characters feature, but they are not a big part of this story. Privateer John-Paul (Richard Allen) and businesswoman Julia are the main characters destined for marriage from her birth.

This archaic contract is the crux of this story and the main point of contention between Richard and Julia. When they meet as adults, their antagonism, falls into a simmering passion and the fun begins. The story is about forgiveness, love, and revenge. The chemistry between Julia and Richard makes this a page-turner. Their conversation makes this novel so entertaining, and their strength of character draws the reader's empathy, for their situation.

The story explores abuse, lack of choice, social class and the position of women in society in a sensitive way, with a love story that makes it memorable.

I received a copy of this book from Random House UK- Transworld Publishers in return for an honest review.

Enjoyable tale, large cast of interesting characters. Lots of twists and turns. I did wonder if this was part of a series as so many of the characters had back stories briefly sketched which sounded fun. If it is a series it's always nice to read in sequence. Thanks to Transworld and Netgalley for providing me with this free ARC and introducing me to Johanna Lindsey

I do love Johanna Lindsey she was one of my first romance authors I read as a teenager (unfortunately a long time ago) so I jumped at the chance to read some of her work again, I really wasn’t disappointed these are as fun and flirty as I remember. The characters are passion, full of chemistry and angst. The writing is good and although sometimes a bit formulaic, I still love them I know what I am signing up for, I know I will get my HEA and maybe a bit of tension on the way, but I will be satisfied by the end (or maybe that’s the characters!) Overall these are full of romance, escapism and I will dive back in any day.

3.5 stars

I didn't take to the hero, Richard. I probably needed to have read earlier books in the series. His violence to the heroine, Julia, borders on the sexual assualt side of it for me. The cover reminds me of early romances in the 1980s and 1990s. The characters are drawn very briefly and though towards the end of the book we get explanations for his poor attitude I still didn't warm to him. There seems to be a further cast of characters from other books that turn up and so in my opinion its not really a standalone book. I liked Julia's father and Julia herself had moments of sanity but then at the end that all seemed to fall away as she lusted for the hero. The book is a reissue from 2010 and though I think it's often lovely to be able to find all an authors back catalog on the ebook format and not convinced of this one.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was concerned when I opened this book to find that the very first line uses the word 'backyard' - in a Regency London setting - and unfortunately it was downhill from there. The writing is appalling. Genuinely some of the worst writing I've ever read. Characters have conversations that are info-dumps (I wanted to say 'thinly veiled', but they aren't even that), reminding each other in minute detail about events in their lives that they were both present for. The narrative swings wildly from limited third person to an omniscient narrator, and it's peppered with Americanisms and exclamation marks. Baffling contradictions are made inside the space of a single sentence ("It had always bothered her... but she had never minded", for example), and previous books are summarised in huge info-dumps completely irrelevant to the current situation being described. It seems like it's an attempt to echo Georgette Heyer's verbosity without actually understanding that sentences and plot still need to tell the story. I also have a pet hate for people using 'confirmed bachelor' to mean 'bachelor', and not 'gay man', as it is a euphemism, not a simple description.

Simply put, this is excruciatingly badly written and I can't bear to drag myself through it. DNFed at 14%.

I enjoyed the story. The pace of it was really good and the interactions between the leads was very amusing. It did take a few chapters to get into the story as many of the characters in the opening chapters had been in previous novels and had so many back stories discussed that made it difficult to follow for someone who had not read the Malory/Anderson novels - which I hadn’t.. Johanna Lindsey was not an author I knew of but her writing was similar to early Stephanie Laurens books and Eloisa James stories which I had enjoyed.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a review copy of this book. I will definitely be reading more.

I wasn't aware, when I started this, that this book is number 10 of the Mallory-Anderson series. I think I might have enjoyed the book, were it not for that, but there was far too much mention of what had happened in previous installments that I had a job to keep up.
I can't say that I'm overly fond of hero, either. Openly pursuing a happily married woman and appearing not to care anything for the feelings of his intended, it bothered me that the "feud" between them was never really laid to rest. Yes, he explained why he had done it and apologised but I feel the heroine should have told him how deeply some of his actions had affected her into her adult life.

Not a great book but also not terrible.

I've enjoyed books by this author previously but found this one a bit hard to get through. There are altogether too many characters and too much back story for them, especially when they're only featured in a scene or 2, and it just makes it very hard to follow, especially the early chapters. I stopped this book twice and had to persuade myself to try again with it. Also there were a lot of sex scenes which aren't my bag so I didn't enjoy that either. It's a shame as the storyline was good, it's just the enacting of it which let it down

A tale of twists and turns, revisiting the past, dealing with the present and looking to the future. A very entertaining romance, one it was hard to put down.