Welcome to the Phoenix Club, where London’s most audacious, disreputable, and intriguing ladies and gentlemen find scandal, redemption, and second chances.
Ada Treadway has been in love before, and it brought nothing but heartache. Still, she retains her cheerful optimism and is fiercely protective of the independence and respect she’s earned as bookkeeper of the Phoenix Club. When the owner enlists her help to organize his friend’s estate ledgers, she’s eager to prove her expertise and her worth. But his friend turns out to be a disagreeable, unpleasant beast, and Ada works to find the warm-hearted gentleman she’s sure lurks beneath.
Maximillian Hunt, the Viscount Warfield doesn’t care if he lives to see tomorrow, and he certainly doesn’t want to recall yesterday. The arrival of the meddlesome and effusively positive woman who will put his accounts in order not only reminds him of the past he’s desperate to forget, she sparks something within him he thought dead. Tempted by a future he never imagined, he must do the impossible: convince her that he’s worth risking her heart a second time.
Review:
I absolutely loved this Beauty and the Beast inspired story!
Ava and Max’s story is a pitch perfect example of what’s apparently my new favorite trope, a grumpy/sunshine pairing. Max, who suffered external as well as internal wounds in the war, hasn’t voluntarily left his home in over a year–and even at home he often behaves as a beast toward what little staff he has left. When Lucien sends Ava to help get his estate back in order, Max is irritated by her sunny nature and resents both her and Lucien’s interference in his life. As Ava helps to open his eyes to the problems his neglect is causing those around him, she awakens…other…things inside Max as well.
But of course they both need to be dragged into an *actual* relationship practically kicking and screaming. (Starting a purely physical one, though, is easy-peasy, naturally ;))
I loved watching Max start to live again, and seeing Ava come to realize that what she shares with Max is worlds beyond what she had in her last relationship was just as satisfying. I closed my ereader after this one with a happy, satisfied sigh.
Ms Burke gives us the barest of teasers for the next one ( Irresistible ), but undercover spies who have to pretend they’re married for a case? I’m so there!
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.