After Leo Chatwick's is murdered Julian Bellamy is bound and determined to find the killers and to see Leo's twin sister, Lily, married off to a suitable man even though he has been secretly in love with her for years. With the help of other friends in the Stud Club he makes some headway into finding the murderers but he continues to go to dangerous places trying to gain more insight into the tragedy. Lily is tired of Julian putting his life in danger and wants him to accept that Leo is dead and learn to live again. When Julian is brought to her house after passing out she lays down the law and tells him to give up on his investigation and then kisses him. He is terrified that his feelings for Lily will be discovered so he agrees to escort her out on the town for three nights and hope that she finds someone to marry. Lily has no intention of finding someone else as she has her own sights set on Julian.
It quickly becomes clear to Julian that watching Lily with other men is not something he can stand and on their second night together on the town he admits his lust for Lily. But Lily demands that he give up searching for Leo's murderers and he begins to think that a life with Lily would be worth giving up anything for. Unfortunately Julian then discovers that the beating meant for Leo may have been meant for him and that someone may know that Julian has a secret life. He knows that he is taking a huge risk but he cannot risk any harm coming to the woman he loves and he can no longer continue to deceive her about his past and his true identity. Lily must come to terms with Julian's past and the risk it poses to their future and learn that there is something more driving him to find Leo's killers. They must work together through the danger and through the secrets to end up together and happy.
As usual Dare's writing style shines and the book is hard to put down and moves really fast. I would like to give her mad props for taking on a deaf heroine as it can not be easy to write for a character who can't hear as speech is very important in romances. I was disappointed that the deafness was really downplayed in the book and caused minimal problems for Lily and those around her. She can read lips (a necessity really in a book) and basically gets a long mostly find without her hearing. The few instances where it did come in to play were very well done though. Lily was altogether rather bland with no fiery temperament and no big secrets, but I felt like this was what made her so perfect for Julian who was so exciting. I really liked that both of them were in love with each other for awhile and were trying so hard to hide it but were so unsuccessful.
Julian had this great secret life and I really admired him and what he had made out of so little and I felt like his disdain of the ton was explained very well. He was brooding and determined to find Leo's murderers and seemed like someone who could fall off the edge if he didn't have a steadying influence. Lily was definitely this steadying influence and she was a perfect accompaniment to him and kept him grounded. There was plenty of sex and much of it was really hot, however by the end I was kind of thinking that it was a little too much for my taste (and that's saying something). Leo's murder was a large arc throughout the entire series and ended in this one and the reader was really kept guessing until the last possible second. It was exciting, it was surprising, and I was really happy with the way the whole thing played out. There were numerous appearances by previous characters- but nothing overly obnoxious.
Rating: These two were a great accompaniment to each other but I felt like something was missing in the book and it was lacking and it times it dragged.
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