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A review by chloe_liese
A Notorious Countess Confesses by Julie Anne Long
5.0
PHEW. This one was dripping with sexual tension and I was here for it. This felt most removed from the other stories in JAL’s Pennyroyal Green series, since it focuses on the town vicar, Adam (an Eversea cousin), and the new (scandalous) woman in town, Eve. Yes, they’re named Adam and Eve. He’s a vicar, she’s a Mary Magdalene. While I’m not a big fan of religion-heavy romances (it tends to dredge up issues and triggers from my own experience with organized religion, which pulls me out of the story), this wasn’t preachy or heavy-handed—it was so classically Julie Anne Long character-driven good, I was sucked right in.
Adam is very much who people need him to be—good, consistent, compassionate, controlled—and Eve has learned to act the roles that bought her struggling family the financial security they desperately needed, at a cost to her reputation of course. Nobody sees the real them, until their relationship starts off with Eve sleeping through Adam’s sermon and then Adam shortly after unexpectedly catching Eve off-guard and seeing much more of her than she lets anyone else know. In each other, Adam and Eve find the first person they’ve been their authentic selves with in much too long; throw in a sizzling dose of steamy chemistry, top notch banter, and a waltz scene that had me white knuckling my kindle, and this slow burn romance had me hooooked.
If you enjoy historical romances focused on non-nobility, about underdog heroines, sexy good-guys, light themes of religious hypocrisy/lessons learned, and seriously hotttt sexual tension, this is a gem you don’t want to miss.
Adam is very much who people need him to be—good, consistent, compassionate, controlled—and Eve has learned to act the roles that bought her struggling family the financial security they desperately needed, at a cost to her reputation of course. Nobody sees the real them, until their relationship starts off with Eve sleeping through Adam’s sermon and then Adam shortly after unexpectedly catching Eve off-guard and seeing much more of her than she lets anyone else know. In each other, Adam and Eve find the first person they’ve been their authentic selves with in much too long; throw in a sizzling dose of steamy chemistry, top notch banter, and a waltz scene that had me white knuckling my kindle, and this slow burn romance had me hooooked.
If you enjoy historical romances focused on non-nobility, about underdog heroines, sexy good-guys, light themes of religious hypocrisy/lessons learned, and seriously hotttt sexual tension, this is a gem you don’t want to miss.