After finishing this book, I had a lot of mixed emotions. Ostensibly, I had a solid B story: Good writing, an interesting plot, a lot of heat between the characters. Nothing that would knock anyone’s socks off, but enjoyable. But my mind kept going back to parts of the book that just made me grimace.

James Blackwood, a Scottish baron, is the personal guard to the Prince of Dalmia, a man whose family the Blackwoods have pledged their loyalty for generations. When the prince’s only son is murdered, he’s forced to seek out his long-forgotten daughter, the product of a legitimate but secret marriage over twenty years before.

Sofia Eastleigh is an artist of some renown, an independent and, shall we say, lusty young woman who does as she pleases. When she first meets Jamie, she wants to both paint him and jump him. He would be agreeable to that, except he must now take Sofia to his well-guarded Scottish estate to protect her from a man who would like to eliminate the prince and his heirs and take Dalmia for himself.

Jamie doesn’t mix business with pleasure, but Sofia is rather persistent, to the point of being what one might even call sexually aggressive. Sex is pretty much where things went down hill for me in this book. While I overall liked Jamie, in the beginning of the novel we basically only see him having copious amounts of sex — and when I say copious, I mean it. I don’t find it attractive when not one, but two people make the observation that he “smells like c—” at formal events. That’s just gross and unsanitary — if you’re already obscenely late because you’ve been boning some woman, take another fifteen minutes to bathe, please. It was also ridiculous that, when preparing for an emergency flight from London, when there is not even enough time for Sofia to pack clothing, he remembers to bring along a dildo. First of all, what the eff? Second of all, why would Sofia think to look for it? Third of all, my questions about the historical accuracy of the terminology lead to a seriously bizarre Google search, “etymology of dildo.”

But okay, this isn’t at all abnormal for hotter romance novels. Some people will be fine with all of this; but I also had trouble with Jamie and Sofia’s banter. Sometimes it was fun and spirited, but other times it felt mean and combative on Sofia’s end, and patronizing on Jamie’s. It’s frustrating when two characters that are ostensibly strong, confident, and independent people find the need to bait and poke at each other for foreplay.

This review, like all reviews, is the opinion of one person. However, I hesitated giving this book the grade that I did, because while I personally had difficulty really enjoying it, I also can very easily see why others might disagree with me. Despite my not truly liking the characters, they were interesting, Jamie especially had some complexities that were well developed, and the story was exciting. However, I wish the sex contributed to the romance and relationship, rather than taking away from it as it did here.