Fun!

The Countess Caper (Dainty Devils #2) by Alyxandra Harvey      

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Packed full of starting situations that has unlikely heroes, feisty women hiding secrets, those with nothing left to lose, and some very bad villains.

I cheered for Lady Tessa Kilkenny and the man she’d come to be attached to, Roark Noble, Earl of Dartmoor—‘the Beast of Dartmoor.’

When Tessa’s dowry had been stolen by her cousin, the dastardly George Kilkenny, Viscount Raleigh, (whom Roark describes as a ‘right tosser’ and Tessa calls a ‘greedy rat b…… ’; when Tessa’s friend Deidre and her baby die abandoned in an alleyway due to the promises and then repudiation by Lord Tewksbury; well it’s no wonder Tessa lost her temper and dunked the Lord’s head  into a punch bowel at a ball. This earned Tessa the nomenclature of Punch Bowl Ophelia by the ton. She’s scorned and disparaged by them, cast out.

Tessa purchases the dilapidated Magpie House to keep a roof over the heads of the women who have been abused, abandoned, sent off by their families, or need shelter from gossip.

To make ends meet Tessa takes up highway robbery. Comes a moment in time when she steals the coach of a Lord, not just any Lord but the Earl of Dartmoor’s. Her excuse is valid. Her cousin Marigold is about to give birth in a lilac bush!

I cheered at the the tale of these two well matched persons. I cheered when the villains got their comeuppance. I cheered when the abused and frightened women stood up against the more powerful persons searching for them!

A marriage of convenience trope that definitely is no inconvenience at all! The attraction between the two is palpable and leaps off the page at you.

A somewhat raunchy and amusing read !(when not serious about the perils confronted by women of all classes at these times).

A Dragonblade Flame ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.