The author seemed to find her footing in this third installment of the series. Our hero's battle with opiates was flushed out more (still not quite fully) and the relationship between the hero and heroine had deeper meaning, too. The Irish plight and the issue with the heroine's brother was pushed to the side and rushed at the end but this book had an overall completeness feel that I found lacking in the others. 

I'm completely on board with this author's writing style, the dark/gothic setting ambiance and the emotionally in the trenches characters she creates. I hope to see more from her.

She gently placed her hand on his forearm. “All those nothings? They destroy you. If you don’t ever say what upsets you, you will drown.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that that was utter shite, that every good Englishman knew you kept your mouth shut. But so many good Englishmen were indeed drowning.

For her . . . For a few disrespectful words, he had thrown a keeper against the wall, knowing the consequences. And for this he did nothing. Her heart suddenly twisted at the dichotomy. How did such a man as Powers love? Wholly. Wholly and beyond. Which was why he had lost himself. For all he loved had vanished from this world. Viscount Powers was not a man easily understood. But soon she would have all the time in the world to understand him. And understand him, she would.

You know how I was sticking with this series because of the promise I could sense in the author? I think I'm getting rewarded here, a heroine that would more than hold her own with a Courtney Milan one, a hero that has tortured depths, a couple that hold serious promise with their verbal fencing and undercurrent of layered feelings, and a backdrop of the Irish plight. I'm very excited and locked in....

2.5 stars

I love the heroines in these books, they are put through horrific circumstances but their strength is always evident, even when they are at their lowest; this author writes women phenomenally. The atmosphere and over reaching story is wonderfully darkly atmospheric and breathtakingly triumphant. However, I'm having a problem with the middle of the story sagging and when it comes to our hero and heroine's relationship, I just don't feel it. I'm fully locked into the heroine's story but not getting the emotions of the hero and heroine forming a romantic/loving relationship. I want to really like these books but I'm just not fully getting there. Reading the next in the series because I want to believe!

“You have something to say?” His voice held the oddest degree of ragged excitement.

Tears slipped down her cheeks. “No.”

“Fine, then.” He hauled back his hand again, drawing his fingers into a fist.

Yvonne closed her eyes. She’d endured enough pain in her life to know she would endure this. She would. For Esme. For all the women who had thought they’d found love and found hell instead, she would endure.

The secondary characters in these books break my heart and have me dying to read their full stories (The heroine in this book was a secondary character in book one).