Highlander regency romance thriller!

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The Sinful Scot (Saints & Scoundrels #3) by Maddison Michaels  
My sympathies certainly were with the abused duchess Constance Campbell, the Duchess of Kilmaine. Married to a vile Duke who used her as a punching bag, his arousel dependent upon inflicting pain.
When Constance awakes to find herself covered blood next to her husband who's been stabbed to death, she wonders if she's been the perpetrator.
So begins the journey for Connie to prove her innocence dogged by the law, her brother-in-law, and other mysterious forces. Her flight is engineered by her childhood friend Dr. Alec McGuiness.
Alec, betrayed in love (and that's a whole 'nother story) is a doctor. His sister has asked him to see how her friend is faring as they've lost touch. He attends the Duke's Ball and is not happy by what he intuits, and what he glimpses.
The path to proving Connie's innocence uncovers further dark dealings and evidence of depraved appetites having turned to murder. As death mysteriously follows Alec and Connie's escape, the novel becomes more of thriller than a romance.
I must admit that given Connie's brutalizations by the Duke her relations with Alec seemed a bit sudden to my mind, but Michaels seems to have tried to mitigate that through Connie's determination and Alec's empathy.
I was totally surprised by the ending. Galvanized by my enjoyment of The Sinful Scot, I find myself itching to read the rest of this series (that if this book is anything to judge the test of the series by). Michaels presents a rather different take in the Highlander / Regency romance genre

 An Entangled Publishing ARC via NetGalley
(I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own)

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