My review contains spoilers and they're mostly my thoughts as I went with the book...
Now here is the thing. Apart from Karen Marie Moning’s Highlanders series, I don’t remember reading and reviewing a series that crossed its 8th book mark. Elizabeth Hoyt’s epic series, Maiden Lane, has done that with more installments on the way (YAY Me!). Sweetest Scoundrel was as long time coming! The ones who have read the books as they published since 2011 would know what I mean. We wanted Asa’s book in... like what? Forever? Finally, it was time for his story to be told, and to find some answers of those questions surrounding his mysterious appearance and disappearances throughout.
For us, the Maiden Lane addicts, Asa has been the stuff of... er, mystery, if not legend. He’s the only Makepeace sibling whose story was left to be told. Sweetest Scoundrel not only answered my questions but also, for the first time, we were introduced to Verity and Concord, the two eldest Makepeace siblings who were always there by mention but never by presence. All I can say is do not read this series out of order!
Of course, I have no idea how to do my usual recap with so many installments passed, but I’ll try nonetheless. Maiden Lane originally was based in St. Giles and revolved around a shadowy character with Harlequin costume and a mask to protect his identity; who went by the name of The Ghost of St. Giles. He was a legend among the locals; some thought him a friend, while others thought him the bad guy. But no one really knew who he was and what the hell he was doing, running in the dark alleyways of St. Giles every night, evading the law enforcement send out to catch him. The series also originally started with 3 Makepeace siblings—Temperance, Asa, Silence and Winter, with Concord and Verity already married and moving on with their familes. The siblings used to run an orphanage badly in need of financial help, passed down to them by their deceased sire. That was about to change soon, one night, in book 1 Wicked Intentions, when Temperance met Lazarus, Lord Caire, who was on the trail of The Ghost, wanting revenge for a wrongdoing. As they both found each-other, Lazarus’ mother, the dowager, helped them finding patronage for the Orphanage from the peers who wished to help. That’s how we come to know about Lady Hero, the sister of the Duke of Wakefield, Maximus. Hero gets her HEA in book 2, Notorious Pleasures with Lord Griffin Reading. Lady Phoebe was introduced as Hero and Maximus’ youngest, gradually going blind, sister.