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** spoiler alert ** I really liked Camille and Keating (especially Keating), and I really liked the idea of not one rake, but TWO "fallen" characters falling for one another. It made for a rather interesting study in scandal, too, and how it affects men vs. women (I LOVED that the park was even MORE crowded the day after Keating scared off Camille's former "friends" by turning into a kissing bandit). Camille's a bit too timid for my taste at first, but she grows (and her family and fiancee DO treat her abominably). Keating is a fantastic character-- a bad boy who really HAS learned his lesson, but still finds it hard to be good. The chemistry AND the friendship between these two is lovely. But I have to admit that Adam, Duke of Greaves, MADE this book for me. (So VERY MUCH looking forward to his title.)

Desperate mutual sacrifice happens all the damn time in romance, and it gets AWFULLY tiresome. I was quite dismayed when I saw it happening to these two, whom I otherwise quite liked... "I will give her up to marry my loser cousin, because at least he can support her in the manner she deserves!" "I will marry his loser cousin, so the man I love can have a chance at the happiness he deserves!" Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Never, though, have I seen an author with the guts to come out and SAY that her main characters are being melodramatically stupid. But here it is, folks, straight from the mouth of Adam: "Evidently, however, two martyrs aimed in the same direction could easily conquer and destroy any possible means to happiness before them." (LOVE.) Yes, yes, I fully understand the circumstances that led them both to want to sacrifice their futures for the other, and it's all quite sweet and noble, but seriously... to actually WRITE a character who grabs them by the necks and knocks their deserving heads together (as the reader SO WANTS TO DO by that point)? FABULOUS. That took a lot of authorial chutzpah, to my mind.

Camille and Keating are a great pair, but Adam, the staunch (and long-suffering) friend who saves these two loving idiots from each other? He saved the book, too. Delightful. As I said, cannot WAIT for his book.