{Lovely Landon Sisters Review} To Covet a Lady’s Heart by Ingrid Hahn @Ingrid_Writer

To Covet a Lady's Heart by Ingrid Hahn
Published by Entangled Publishing on February 13th 2017
Buy on Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Available with KU Subscription
Goodreads

After a lifetime of rakish behavior, Lord Maxfeld must pretend he's reformed and find a fake wife. And, with the perfect blend of family scandal and tenuous acceptance in Society, there is nobody more suitable than Lady Phoebe. Trouble is, Phoebe will not agree to a false engagement, forcing Max to blackmail her into his scheme.

Phoebe will go to great lengths to avoid anything remotely dishonorable. Unwilling to bear the scandal of a broken engagement, she blackmails Max right back--directly to the altar.

Once married, though, Phoebe wants much more than Max's ring. She wants his heart. But he will never give it. For better or worse may just be words but Phoebe cannot stay with Max if he thinks love is the worst thing that can happen.

I received To Covet a Lady's Heart for free. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This love story doesn’t begin in blackmail. Phoebe and Max have been acquainted for a while and both have felt an attraction. Max needs a fiancé but he has no need for a wife. He chooses to blackmail Phoebe into helping him. What’s a little blackmail between friends, right? What the dashing buck doesn’t expect is to fall deeply and irrevocably in love with his fake bride.

As for Phoebe, she somehow is able to overlook the terrible secret Max holds over her and sees the man he is underneath it all. Love comes unexpected and she realizes the only way to make Max her husband is to blackmail him right back.

I fell in love with Hahn’s writing with the first book in the Landon Sisters series, To Win a Lady’s Heart, Corbeau and Grace’s story. She brings those creative juices back in the second novel ten fold. Max is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in historical romance set in this period. He is one thing on the surface, but something almost completely different underneath. I couldn’t stop reading until I knew Max’s final secret which Hahn doesn’t reveal until late in the novel. Those pages to get to the prize kept me throughly entertained.

Phoebe is the youngest of the Landon sisters, but she has skills the others probably don’t possess. She is highly intelligent and extremely observant, two fantastic characteristics when paired up with Max in his devious scheme. I loved how Hahn kept Phoebe’s innocence, yet gave her a strong backbone to plow through her difficult life with. I don’t know how you couldn’t love a woman who figures out how to blackmail a man into doing something he swore never to do. I remember jumping up and screaming “Yes” when I realized the pair would indeed be married.

I enjoyed every moment of this novel and look forward to seeing what Hahn might have in store for the other two Landon sisters. Whatever she dreams up, it’s sure to be an adventure!