I finished two historicals by Joanna Shupe in the past few weeks - A Daring Arrangement and an ARC of A Notorious Vow (out on Sept 25) - books 1 and 3 in her new Gilded Age series.

A historical romance with a deaf reclusive hero, and a virgin noble heroine as MCs. I liked the disability rep (I have no experience with deafness myself, so I'm speaking from the position of an outsider), we see the deaf hero in a position of privilege and how the support and the good financial situation helped him and provided him with opportunities to succeed despite being deaf. Still, there was a poignant plot element revealing the vulnerability (in legal and purely personal sense) of deaf people at the time.

I loved the hero but I was not the biggest fan of the heroine. He was interesting, smart, caring, loving and I enjoyed following his character journey. She, on the other had, she was very much the meek, clueless virgin heroine we so often see in historical romance. It took a while for her to stand up for herself and to act with more confidence and determination and by the end of the book I had much more respect for her.

My main complaint was that the villains felt like caricatures of evilness rather than real people. Her her parents, his cousin, they were over the top in their villainy and lacked nuanced and character development. 3.5 stars

CW for scenes of violence and abuse in mental hospital, ableist language (that got challenged on page). 

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I loved this fun fake engagement romance. And it was all because of the heroine who was, bubbly and energetic, doing everything for love, daring, spontaneous while also having moments of self doubt and insecurity. 

The hero was rather interesting too - successful and smart, bon vivant, not ashamed of how much money he makes and he spends freely and with abandon. He does everything to help the heroine while trying in vain not to fall for her.

Like book 3, I found the villain here to be too villainous though there was more background and motivation to his actions.

The story gives us interesting reflections on the change of morel values, with the heroine coming to realise that there might not be just one and only true love.

There was a lot of action and plot twists towards the end which I quite enjoyed. I loved seeing the excess and glamour of the Gilded Age all through the story.

Overall, this was an interesting and very engaging historical romance with a wonderful heroine and a most caring hero. 4 stars

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I'm finally giving up on Stripped by Zoey Castile. I left it at 60% a couple of weeks ago and I'm not motivated to finish it. I was drawn to the premise of a Latina school teacher and a male stripper getting together but the book didn't deliver. It's told in dual POV first person present tense and it felt juvenile and flat. Both characters were in their late 20s and were going through some sort of of early mid-life crisis. While we got some insight as to why he was starting to feel dissatisfied with his job and his life in general, her total loss of control over life was never properly explained. I needed to see more of their motivation.

I hated the subplot with her school principal, it was silly and didn't add anything important to the story. On the plus side, I liked the hero, his band of stripper brothers and their interactions were quite entertaining, I also found the relationship between the heroine and her best friend interesting but that was not enough to save this for me. 

Currently reading: Rebel Hard by Nalini Singh, contemporary m/f romance with Indian MCs, arranged marriage. I have some minor quibbles but it's mostly good so far, very romantic.