Ahh, the last of the series! Unsurprisingly, I also really enjoyed this one, although admittedly I think it was my least favorite of the trilogy (although, to be fair, it being my “least favorite” of a series I liked a lot still means I enjoyed it more than many other books I’ve read).
This book follows Lord Courtenay, famously a rake and a libertine, as he falls in with Julian Medlock, self-made man who has taken it upon himself for his sister’s sake to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image. The two men don’t get along at all; Julian is condescending toward Courtenay and Courtenay seems to enjoy pissing Julian off. Of the three books in this series I think this one gets closest to the enemies-to-lovers trope, and also is the only book where the conflict is actually about interpersonal harm done by one party to the other instead of being a conflict to do with class or expectations the way it was in the previous two books.
I don’t know if it’s related, but I think the characterization in this book was a little weaker and maybe that’s why it didn’t hit quite as well as the ones that preceded it? I feel like I didn’t get quite enough about either of the main characters. I would have loved to know more about how Courtenay’s treatment by his family led to his wild ways, or why Julian is so close-lipped about his childhood upbringing. There was a lot of really interesting groundwork laid for both characters but I didn’t feel that it paid off quite as well as it did for the couples in the other books.
That said, I did actually really like that the conflict in this book was something that one of them did to the other that hurt them. That was an interesting twist and I do feel like that resolved well enough between them for me to be content with it. And like I said above, overall I still liked this book quite a bit more than many others I’ve read, even if it wasn’t my most favorite of this particular series.
All in all, I fear that Cat Sebastian is about to become an auto-buy author for me!
Pleasure: ★★★★☆
Purpose: ★★★★☆
Prose: ★★★★☆
Plot: ★★★★☆
Personal: ★★★★☆