Red-Haired Ash Reads

Angelica Winthrop wants to avoid marriage and is determined to push the men of society away with unladylike behavior. Unfortunately her plans keep backfiring and now multiple men are pursuing her. But when she sneaks into the supposedly haunted home of Ian Ashton, Duke of Burnrath, looking for inspiration for her next story, she finds something more dangerous than ghosts and causes the scandal that she was looking for. 

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed aspects of it but others just frustrated me. Angelica was so naive and privileged that it got on my nerves at times. She really didn’t understand how hard it was for people without a fortune until Ian forces her into the poor area of London so she can see first hand the issues people face. Also, for a woman who instantly accepts there are vampires, she really seems clueless as to why it was so dangerous for her to write a story about vampires. Yes, she does realize later, but I still wanted to slap her and be like use your brain on this. 

Ian was over two hundred years old and was the Lord Vampire of London. He sees marrying Angelica as a chance to squash the rumors about him being a vampire and helping savage her reputation. I liked that aspect of Ian and how he fell kind of hard for her. What I didn’t like about Ian was his response to finding out about Angelica’s story. He went too far, especially since he knew how important being able to write was for Angelica. 

The relationship between these two was a bit of a marriage of convenience and instant love. They both fell for each other very quickly even though neither of them admitted it until the end. But, these two did some very mean and unromantic things to each other and it made me struggle to see a happy ending for them. Also there was just a lot of miscommunication happening because these two don’t ever really have heartfelt conversations, they just got married and have sex every time they are alone, and then are apart after they fight. So I just got a bit frustrated at their relationship, especially from Ian since he is over 200 years old and should know how to communicate better.

Overall, this was fine. It was an interesting premise as I love the idea of a vampire in a historical setting. But, I think the world building was lacking and the romance was just fine. I might give book two a chance but we will see. 

TW: blood; murder; death; sexism; misogyny; kidnapping; infertility; attempted sexual assault; 

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