Olivia Michaels is on a mission. A mission of vengeance, of justice. As a thief preying on the most despicable of the Ton, she spends her day as a companion to an elderly dowager soaking up gossip on the look out for the next mark on her list. But when she’s suddenly sacked for an incident that was not her fault, she decides to take her case to the man who got her into her current predicament: the raffish and rakish Lord Anthony Trent.
Anthony Trent has a secret. A hidden struggle. As a scion of one of Britain’s manufacturing barons, he’s expected to be able to conduct business with the best. Except numbers elude him. They swim about on the page becoming mixed up and flipped. A huge liability. One he’s taken care to hide under a veneer of insouciance.
When Miss Michaels turns up on Anthony’s doorstep, he’s intrigued. Intrigued by her gumption but even more intrigued by her ability to add up sums in her head. Hiring her to spend her days with his dragon of a grandmother and her afternoons with him as his assistant, he quickly discovers that there is more to Miss Michaels than meets the eye.
Will love bloom with so many secrets and class differences standing in the way?
This is my first book by this author, and I hadn’t realized until over halfway through that this was part of a larger series. Which is good. It means the book can stand on its own, something that I feel is important in a series like this.
I enjoyed this tale of a lady thief born on the wrong side of the blanket and a second son suffering from dyscalculia. Olivia is a fun heroine. Determined, intelligent, kind. She’s got common sense but is impetuous enough to be interesting. She’s a good egg.
I especially liked Anthony, the hero. His secret struggle appealed to me and his frustrations with his own limitations felt real. As someone who suffers from both dyslexia and dyscalculia seeing it being portrayed on the page in a respectful and meaningful way matters.
The romance was believable and developed well over the course of the book. I also seriously appreciated the way the employer/employee situation was handled. While Anthony has the power, he deliberately puts the direction of the relationship in Olivia’s hands. There’s several check ins throughout the book where Anthony makes sure that what’s happening is okay. He lets Olivia take the lead and decide what she’s comfortable with. It was lovely to read.
The one thing that keeps this from being a five star from me is that I felt the ending was a bit rushed. And the class difference between them wasn’t addressed enough for my liking. That said, I’m definitely sold on this series. The characters I did see, I liked. This is a solid book and a new author for my shelf.
Four stars.
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I received an ARC of this book Via NetGalley
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